


Meridian

by bazooka



Series: Vintage Bakery [3]
Category: Sungkyunkwan Scandal
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bakery, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Demisexual Moon Jae Shin, Domestic Violence, F/M, M/M, Pansexual Gu Yong Ha, Romantic Comedy, Vintage Bakery AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-03-21 11:29:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 103,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3690549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bazooka/pseuds/bazooka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part Three, in which: Mr Really Fucking French causes a lot of problems for absolutely everyone; Gu Yong Ha makes up for lost time; all of Moon Jae Shin's bad habits come back to keep him company; Gu Yong Ha is unknowingly complicit in a murder; the noble art of punching someone in their damn face is explored on three separate occasions; Moon Jae Shin makes a second attempt; sometimes things can work; Gu Yong Ha is uncharacteristically nervous; Kim Yoon Shik wins a bet; Moon Jae Shin doesn't go to prison on homicide charges; everything turns out all right in the end.</p><p>Part three of an absolutely horrendously ridiculous modern-day AU in three parts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Coming Together, Falling Apart

**Author's Note:**

> You can read part 3 without reading parts 1 and 2, but that's just because I'm not your mom and I can't tell you what to do. I highly recommend reading everything in order, though, or else you might get super confused.
> 
> Part 3 is rated ~~M~~ E (ohhh my god I swear it was rated M when I started) because there's a lot more, um, _stuff_ in here: about exactly the same amount of swearing as in parts 1 and 2; a billion times more sex, some of which is just implied and some of which is spelled out pretty clearly and not all of it between people you probably want to be having sex; three different fist fights of varying seriousness/severity; a portrayal of domestic violence; a brief description of a murder... basically if you've watched Antique Bakery, then, um, it's not a lot like that to be completely honest. But I'll give warnings at the beginning of each chapter if there's going to be anything too rough and if people want I'll try adding synopses with low trigger-content in the closing notes.
> 
> If you're not interested in reading smut, I recommend skipping or skimming chapters 17 (Smut Lite with quite a bit of actual plot thrown in), 19 (slightly more explicit with a lot of banter but very little plot), 20 (wall-to-wall smut and character development), and 21 (EXPLICIT but at the end there's set up for a joke later on). Then again if you're _only_ interested in reading smut then skip everything except those chapters. You're welcome! :D
> 
> My husband told me that the violence in here doesn't credit an archive warning, so if anybody thinks it does let me know so I can bap him on the shoulder and yell "I TRUSTED YOU AND YOU FAILED ME" directly into his ear.
> 
> I MISSED ALL OF YOU! Writing is hard. Whose idea was this?? (Oh right. Mine. _Rude._ )

* * *

**Saturday, 7:15pm**  


In his defense, Gu Yong Ha really, really, really needed to get laid.

He hadn't spent very much time in his apartment in the last two, two and a half months - mostly to get new clothes - so when he unlocked the door and tumbled over the threshold, Jean-Baptiste's mouth on him, hands already halfway through the process of unbuttoning his shirt, the lights were off and the air was cold, but it wasn't noticeable. Maybe they just didn't notice.

"You wear glasses now," Jean-Baptiste mumbled, lips still pressed to his mouth, fingers struggling with the button of his jeans. "I should never have left you alone."

"Yeah, well," Yong Ha bit back, trying to remember his French, "you cut your hair."

Jean-Baptiste's coat ended up in the entryway in a pile over a stack of shoes. Yong Ha's shirt ended up tossed over the tv. Neither of their pairs of jeans made it all the way through the living room, let alone all the way to the bed. Jean-Baptiste pulled off Yong Ha's undershirt with enough desperate force that he ripped the bottom hem - and stopped.

"What happened?" he said, running his fingers light and careful over Yong Ha's left shoulder.

Yong Ha glanced down and for the first time in a long time felt - was it embarrassed? Self conscious? He'd had countless (maybe not countless) sex partners and all of them had been shocked, but he'd just grinned and told each of them a new and increasingly dramatic story of heroism. "I was in the military," he said now, suddenly feeling the cold. "I got hurt. I'm fine now."

"You were perfect," Jean-Baptiste sighed, and then said something in French that Yong Ha couldn't remember all the words for.

"What? I don't -"

"You were perfect," Jean-Baptiste said again. Twisted his mouth, searching for a simpler word. "And now you're ruined."

"I'm fine now," Yong Ha repeated, hands still tangled in the bottom hem of Jean-Baptiste's undershirt.

"You're still... beautiful." Jean-Baptiste leaned down, gently laid a hand on his jaw and moved it to the side so he could kiss him on the line of his throat. "To me."

If anyone else had said that he'd have thrown them out in the cold, but this was Jean-Baptiste and anyway it was his fault for forgetting so much French. He'd probably have said it better if he could have, but there's only so much you can do with a fifth grade vocabulary, right? Right. And anyway... anyway... he lost his train of thought. "Why is your shirt still on?"

"I don't know," Jean-Baptiste replied. "Were you planning on doing anything about that?"

It was all the invitation he needed.

He hadn't gotten laid in three months, which was the longest dry spell he'd had since getting out of the military. Even in the military he hadn't been anywhere close to a saint: even in the most conservative of armed forces there are always people looking for someone to blow off some steam with, and he'd blown off his share of steam (among other things). But he hadn't gotten laid in three months and he'd woken up almost every damn morning with Jae Shin's skin under his hand and he... and he was suffering, was all. That's all there was to it.

So when Jean-Baptiste, the first man he'd ever fucked, pushed him rough and hard and frantic down onto the bed he almost didn't care what was going to happen next. As long as it was something, god damn it, as long as it could make him forget what he didn't want to remember just right then.

Yong Ha almost felt bad, afterward; his downstairs neighbors had spent the last two and a half months in relative quiet, free of whatever noises may have emanated from the apartment from his variety of sexual conquests. But Jean-Baptiste had always been good and if anything he'd gotten even better over the last four years. And Yong Ha hadn't gotten laid in three months. And, and, and.

And maybe he should get them a fruit basket or something.

"I should get them a fruit basket or something," he mumbled into the mattress. The air in the apartment still hadn't really warmed up yet but good lord, he was overheated and drenched with sweat from two different people.

"What?" Jean-Baptiste sighed in his ear.

"For the neighbors. As an apology."

"What do you have to apologize for?"

Yong Ha turned his head to the side so he could see Jean-Baptiste a little better. "Are you joking?" He wiggled a little and groaned. "Roll over. You're crushing me."

"I didn't hear you complaining before," Jean-Baptiste said, but he rolled over anyway. "At least I don't think that was complaining. You weren't using any words that I know. Was that supposed to be French?"

"I don't think it was even Korean," Yong Ha sighed back, taking advantage of the opportunity to take in a deep breath. He shifted so that he was on his back, tucking in close against Jean-Baptiste. The chill in the air was starting to get to him, as damp as he was, and Jean-Baptiste was like a furnace. "I missed you."

Jean-Baptiste wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him in, pressing his lips to Yong Ha's temple. "I missed you too. Don't you need to be up early for work tomorrow?"

Yong Ha closed his eyes and focused on the warmth of him, on the feel of him, on the way his hand rested on his hip possessively instead of everything else that had happened that day. "Tomorrow's my day off," he said. "And anyway I don't even know if I'll have a job in the morning."

"That's good for me," Jean-Baptiste mumbled back, settling into the mattress. "I'll get you all to myself."

 

* * *

**Saturday, 5:00pm**

  
The sound of the kitchen door slamming against the wall hit Yong Ha like a slap in the face, waking him up, stopping his heart for a fraction of a second.

He jerked away from Jean-Baptiste and spun on his heel to face the source of the sound and it was just Yoon Shik standing there behind the display case, eyes huge, face white, hands up with fingers splayed in something that looked a lot like panic. No Seon Joon. No Jae Shin. No one else. So why did Yoon Shik look so terrified? "Please," Yong Ha choked out. "Please, tell me he wasn't -"

Yoon Shik just shook his head, slow at first and then fast and frantic for a second. "I can't tell you that," he said. "He's gone. He left. I don't know where he went."

He lurched forward - but then Jean-Baptiste's hand was on his arm, holding him back. Yong Ha stopped. Stared down at the hand, not really seeing it, before looking up into Jean-Baptiste's face. "My boss," he said stupidly, not knowing what else to say. "He doesn't - I mean, he didn't..."

"I don't think you're in trouble," Yoon Shik managed, face still chalk white. Next to him the kitchen door opened again, slowly this time, and Seon Joon came out into the bakery like a prey animal caught outside cover, vultures circling overhead. "I don't think you're in trouble."

"Don't think you know what's going on," Yong Ha said. He didn't say it meanly - it wasn't snapped or spat out. He was just suddenly so, so tired. "I don't even know what's going on half the time, and I'm Gu Yong Ha."

Seon Joon reached out and touched Yoon Shik on the sleeve, the expression on his face one giant question. Yoon Shik just glanced up at him and shook his head, a quick one-two back and forth that carried more meaning than a monologue.

"Is everything all right?" Jean-Baptiste said, and Yong Ha had to switch the gears in his head from Korean to French. Just right then it was like shifting into reverse on the highway, and he could almost hear the clash and scream of it.

"Fine," he said. "Everything's fine. I'm off work, let's go somewhere else." He turned, unbuttoning his chef coat as he moved. Shrugged it off. Untied his long apron. Tossed the white cotton over the display case, into Yoon Shik's open arms. "I'm not coming in tomorrow," Yong Ha said, in Korean. "I'll be back on Tuesday morning. Tell him... tell him if he doesn't want me to come in then he has to come tell me himself."

Yoon Shik gaped. "You think he'll fire you? He wouldn't - I mean, I don't think that he'd -"

Yong Ha grinned (and he could tell that it was a cheap one, thin and unconvincing) and shrugged. "Wouldn't be the first job I've lost because of who I've fucked. Hey, sea cucumber -" Seon Joon looked up. "- take care of Yoon Shik, all right? Boy like that doesn't come along every day."

The blood drained out of both of their faces. "What?" Seon Joon said.

But Yong Ha was already walking out the door, feeling the weight of dozens of pairs of eyes on him. Everyone in the bakery, every single customer was silent and watching. Oh well. Oh well. He'd always liked being noticed, right? What the hell. Could be worse. (How could it be worse? In what possible, possible way could it be any worse?)

Jean-Baptiste's hand was on his waist.

Yong Ha looked up, and Jean-Baptiste just smiled at him - that half smile that got to him every single time. "Want to show me around Seoul?" he asked, and that smooth voice, slippery in the way only French could be in the mouth of someone he'd kissed, thrummed over his nerves.

What the hell. "How about this," Yong Ha said. "Let me show you around Seoul tomorrow instead."

How could it be better? In what possible, possible way could it be any better?

 

  
He didn't drive. His keys were in his jacket, upstairs in the attic office. He didn't take the subway or hail a cab. His wallet was sitting on the desk, the transit card behind his ID where it always was. His cell phone was in the pocket of his jeans but calling someone was - he couldn't.

When he showed up at the front gate of his mother's house he was freezing cold, hands blue and fingers stiff, but he didn't care.

She changed the codes on the locks every three months, sure, but she'd been doing it for the last twenty years and he didn't even have to think about the numbers when he typed them in. She told him every time they changed and the new codes slotted themselves into his head like they always had, pushing out the old ones to make room. He almost didn't remember it being any other way.

The lock on the front door beeped and sang under his hand and if he hadn't been so fucking stiff maybe he would have fallen over the threshold into the dark of the house. But it wasn't dark, and he didn't fall.

His mother was in the living room, the entryway just in her line of sight, and her head turned when the door opened. "Jae Shin. What are you doing here?"

What was he doing there? What the hell was he doing? The warm air inside the house stung his skin almost as harshly as the cold had before, and he just shook his head. "Can I sleep here?" he said, or tried to say. His throat was too dry. He couldn't think.

His mother glanced at the clock. "It's only six o'clock." Then back at his face. Set her glass of wine down on a side table and went to him, holding a hand out. "Are you okay?"

He just looked at her offered hand for a second, before slowly extending his own. "I'm okay. Can I sleep here?"

She recoiled, just a tiny, almost imperceptible jerk backward. "You're freezing." But she grabbed hold of him anyway, her small warm hand folding into his ice cold palm. "Why are you so cold? Jae Shin. Talk to me."

"I'm okay," Jae Shin said again.

"You're not okay," his mother said, and her voice went from worried to furious and maternal, the kind of sound her voice had when he was about to get in trouble. She pulled him up into the house, off the slate tile of the entry, not caring even a little that he still had his shoes on. "You're not okay. You're freezing cold and you don't have your jacket and - and look at your shoes, did you walk here, for Christ's sake?"

"Yeah." He pulled his hand out of her grip and stepped back down into the entryway to kick his shoes off distractedly. He didn't feel like he was awake. "Can I... can I just sleep here?"

His mother stood there on the step, ramrod straight. Her hands were in fists at her sides. She was wearing a gray shift dress and nylons and she still had those pearl earrings he'd given her for Christmas twelve years ago and her gray-streaked hair was up and she had makeup on and her mouth was - her mouth was doing that thing, where it went perfectly, perfectly straight. "You're not okay," she said again, her voice quiet. "You're not okay."

"I don't deserve to not be okay," Jae Shin said, because that was all there was, because it was the only thing he could think of to say. The warm air was starting to get to him somehow, making him lightheaded. "Please, can I just -"

"Don't you dare." Her hands were around his forearms and she hauled him bodily up into the house again. "Don't you dare say that. You never did anything wrong." He almost thought she was going to hit him - not hard, just a quick whack across the shoulder - but then instead she just folded him into her arms as though he were still a kid, not caring that he was a foot taller than she was. "Please, Jae Shin. Just tell me what happened."

He closed his eyes. "I'm okay, Mom."

Later he'd insist that he fell asleep on his feet. It wasn't a faint, he fell asleep. He hadn't slept well the night before and he'd walked god knows how long in the cold without a jacket and he was exhausted, exhausted, exhausted and so he fell asleep on his feet - and when he fell, he fell hard.


	2. Neon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter: Kim Yoon Hee smacks some sense into deserving parties; Lee Seon Joon is a lovestruck dweeb; Moon Jae Shin is real bad at being a grown up; Gu Yong Ha is absent entirely.

**From: Kim Yoon Shik**  
**Sent: 21:11, Feb 18**

Hey, boss. Are you coming in?

* * *

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 21:37, Feb 18**

what time is it

* * *

**From: Kim Yoon Shik**  
**Sent: 21:39, Feb 18**

It's almost 10pm. Are you okay? All your stuff is still in the office from yesterday.

* * *

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 21:37, Feb 18**

i'm sick. close up. i'm going back to sleep.

 

* * *

 

"Well?"

Kim Yoon Hee made a face at her cell phone and set it down on the table in front of her. "He says he's sick."

Lee Seon Joon nodded sagely. "I see."

She sighed, but the sigh turned into a groan and the groan turned into a tiny scream of frustration as she slapped herself in the face a few times as though trying to wake herself up. "I can't believe this. This whole thing. Does he just expect us to stay all night? Or close up early? I mean, hell -" Yoon Hee stood up from where she'd been sitting at one of the tables closest to the display case and started to pace irritably. "- you're a man, Joon. Do you have any insight into this?"

He'd been ready for anything, but not that. He opened his mouth to respond, but immediately thought better of it and closed it again. Thought for a second. "Me?"

"Yes, you." She paused just long enough to glower at him dangerously before continuing to pace. "Okay, let's figure this out."

"I don't know that I have any insight, per se," he said carefully, watching the way the tendons in her wrists flexed as she clenched and unclenched her fists. (Would there ever come a day he wouldn’t feel that thrill of terror at her presence? Hopefully not.) "There's history there that I don't feel comfortable analyzing further without -"

"Yeah, yeah," she sighed, waving a hand. She stopped pacing and turned slowly to peer around the bakery like a periscope, hands clasped pensively behind her back. "There's no one else here, Seon Joon."

"There isn't?" His heart thumped hard in his chest. "I... I suppose there isn't. What -"

She smiled, that pixie quirk to her mouth that sometimes meant Mischief but mostly just meant Trouble, but just right then the smile had edges to it. He'd seen that in her before, but not for a while - mostly it showed up in class, during mock trials, that moment when he could see in her eyes that she'd caught someone in a mistake that she could use and twist and break and win. (It had been turned on him once or twice and he'd barely survived the experience.)

"Let's close up early," Kim Yoon Hee said mildly, twisting her hands behind her back to untie her apron, "and take the boss his things."  
  


  
The doorbell rang.

Moon Jae Shin opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. His throat hurt. His neck hurt. His kidneys hurt. His skin hurt. His eyeballs hurt. His head definitely, definitely hurt. The sound of the doorbell was like... it was like a gong, but somehow it was on the inside of his skull and the clash of it reverberated around his cerebral cortex in a vortex of agony.

For half a minute he thought maybe he'd imagined the sound, that it was just the manifestation of his own all-encompassing guilt and self-loathing rearing its ugly head and preventing him from sleeping for even five damn minutes, but then the doorbell rang again and he didn't think very much of anything for a few seconds.

Well, hold on. No one rang his doorbell. (He opened his eyes again and fixed the ceiling with such a fierce, blurry-eyed stare that the ceiling by all accounts should have felt very ashamed of itself.) He didn't have any friends and his mother had a key and it had to either be a mistake or a salesman or... or maybe it was -

Whoever it was, they rang the doorbell again and then knocked three times for good measure.

Jae Shin sat up - slowly, gently, bones creaking and muscles protesting - and rubbed his face carefully. He'd gotten home that morning and almost immediately fallen asleep again on the white leather couch in his living room, (the fanciest fucking couch), so he was still in the clothes he'd worn the day before. He hadn't brought anything with him to his mother's house (of course) and nothing of his father's fit him anymore (of course) and anyway what was a little wrinkled linen in your own home?

Getting to the front door was an adventure. He felt half dead and the wood floor was cold and he hadn't spent very much time in his apartment in the last three months so he couldn't remember where everything was but he was at the front door in just a few seconds, just a few seconds when he realized he wasn't ready.

Jae Shin looked down at himself - at his wrinkled trousers, his black socks, the off-white button-up with the top five buttons undone that had come mostly untucked - and wondered if he would ever be ready. Maybe. Probably. Definitely not right now.

Fuck it.

He opened the door.

"It's freezing out here," Kim Yoon Shik gasped, his nose bright pink and his lips nearly blue. He clutched two bulging take-out sacks in his mittened hands. "What took you so long?"

"You look terrible," Lee Seon Joon added, with his usual level of tactful diplomacy.

"Oh, thank you very much," Jae Shin growled, leaning against the door frame and peering at them blearily, trying like hell not to be disappointed that it wasn't Yong Ha and failing spectacularly. "What the hell are you two doing here? How do you know where I live?"

Kim Yoon Shik grinned and opened his mouth to respond - then stopped. Looked down at the sacks in his hands. Dropped them suddenly and reached into one coat pocket. "You left your wallet at the bakery," he explained quickly, pulling the thick black leather square out of the pocket and flipping it open. "We just punched the address on your ID into Cucumber's phone. Hey presto!"

"Stop calling me that," Seon Joon said, and reached down to pick up one of the sacks that Yoon Shik had dropped. "Pick that up, it's going to spill everywhere."

"Are you going to let us in?" Yoon Shik cocked his head to one side. "It's freezing, and I won't give you your car keys until you do."

At the best of times Jae Shin didn't always feel like he was keeping up with whatever it was that went on in Kim Yoon Shik's head. It always felt as though the kid was five steps ahead and making fun of him for it somehow in a pleasantly good-natured sort of way. He got the kind of twinkle that Yong Ha did sometimes, and he definitely had it now - though it had an almost dangerous sort of shine to it. "Yeah, okay," he said after a second, stepping to one side. "I guess. I mean... for my car keys."

Yoon Shik stepped around him, pausing just barely long enough to shed his over-sized boots, and wandered into the apartment. "Where's the kitchen? Oh, never mind. I found it."

Seon Joon stepped into the apartment and carefully took off his own shoes. "He..." He regarded Jae Shin awkwardly for a moment. "He's not shy," he finished.

"Oh," Jae Shin said irritably, and closed the door.

"Are those the clothes you were wearing yesterday?" Kim Yoon Shik asked when Jae Shin rounded the corner. He hadn't even looked up, both hands busy pulling styrofoam containers out of the take-out sacks.

"No," Jae Shin lied.

"Careful," Seon Joon said under his breath as he walked past, shrugging off his coat.

"Don't lie to me." Yoon Shik glanced up sternly. "Go put on some pajamas or something, you look like death warmed over."

"Are you going to give me my car keys?"

"After you eat something. Seon Joon, make him go put on some pajamas."

"I'm not going to do that," Seon Joon said flatly.

Moon Jae Shin pulled out a chair and sat down at the dining room table. Folded his arms on the tabletop. Buried his head in his arms. "My head hurts. Why are you here?"

The sound of a dish being set down on wood made him look up, and Yoon Shik was right there, at his elbow, a bowl of porridge in his hand. "You're sick," Yoon Shik said, his voice soft. "I take care of sick people. Go put some pajamas on and come eat some soup."  
  


  
Moon Jae Shin stood in his bedroom, listening to the clatter and bang of Yoon Shik in his kitchen, listening to the way he and Seon Joon bickered and fought like his parents (that gross, affectionate kind of arguing that had always made him want to go upstairs before things got out of hand). His bed was made and unslept in and his dresser was practically empty, almost all of its usual contents scattered across the attic floor over the kitchen of Vintage, and he stood in his bedroom in just his boxers and tried to figure out what he was going to put on that wouldn't have Yoon Shik sending him back in to try again.

Remember that time Yong Ha had burst into his apartment? Back in September, when things were still new and easy? Well, okay - they were difficult then too, but not the way they were now. He remembered being worried that Yong Ha would leave, that he'd do something or say something and then look up to find him gone again. Without warning, again.

That had been so much easier to deal with than this.

God, he was such an idiot.  
  


  
"Can I speak frankly?" Yoon Shik said suddenly.

All three of them were sitting around Jae Shin's kitchen table: Jae Shin bundled up pathetically in pajamas and a sweatshirt and a blanket around his shoulders, eating rice porridge in a shame-faced sort of way; Seon Joon sitting straight-backed and nervous at the head of the table; Yoon Shik across from Jae Shin, one foot tucked up casually onto his chair and knee by his shoulder, leaning over the table with his head propped up thoughtfully in his palm.

Jae Shin glanced up and across the table at the kid. He swallowed his mouthful of porridge. "No," he said darkly. "But I can't help but feel as though you're going to anyway."

"You're learning," Seon Joon said.

"How long have you known Gu Yong Ha?" Yoon Shik asked, pointedly ignoring both of them.

"Fifteen years." Well, hold on. Jae Shin made a face at his porridge and then glanced up at the calendar hanging on the kitchen wall. It was still last year's calendar, of course, but the act of looking was more habit than anything. "I guess almost sixteen, now."

Yoon Shik blinked. "Seriously?"

Jae Shin just nodded, looking back down at his bowl and stirring the contents in silence.

"That's a lot longer than I thought," the kid said, shaking his head. "Jeez. Sixteen years? What's the story there?"

"We went to middle school together," Jae Shin said. What was he doing? He didn't owe this kid anything, he didn't have to tell him a damn thing. But somehow it just... felt really, really good, actually saying some of this out loud for once. "He's always been the way he is now - you know, sort of floppy and rude - so I had to save his stupid ass from getting beat up this one time. After that he followed me like a shadow for - for about twelve years, I guess." Until he'd fucked it up.

"Until you fucked it up?"

The spoon nearly fell out of his hand. "What?"

"Yoon Shik," Seon Joon said quickly, shooting forward. "What are you -"

Yoon Shik just waved a hand, shook his head impatiently. "Anyone with eyes can tell something happened there," he said sharply. "Or maybe even without. You don't have to tell me what happened but come on, give me some credit here - the way you both walk on eggshells around each other, the way you're so familiar but don't know how to talk to each other, just -" He sighed. Rolled his eyes. "And when that French guy showed up -"

Jae Shin flinched involuntarily - tiny and almost imperceptible, just a miniscule tightening of the muscles around his eyes, his mouth.

"- yeah, exactly," Yoon Shik said, pointing at him. "You have guilt written all over you in flashing neon letters. You fucked up and I don't think you even realized it when you did. What, did you not know? About Yong Ha? You knew each other for twelve years and you didn't know?"

"It's not that simple," Jae Shin said, his voice hoarse.

"He thinks you're going to fire him," Seon Joon said. His voice was mild, chilly like it always was, but it cut through the tension like snuffing a candle. He'd been staring at a knot in the wood of the table top, but now he looked up at Jae Shin, expression smooth.

"Right," Jae Shin sighed, setting the spoon down on the table. "I was wondering why I felt like I was being cross-examined. I forgot that you two are in law school."

"He's in law school," Yoon Shik protested, hooking a thumb in Seon Joon's direction. "I'm not."

"Are you going to?" Seon Joon said. "Fire him?"

"Of course not." Jae Shin inhaled a deep breath and closed his eyes. He was so tired, and his eyes hurt, and his throat was sore, and... and yeah, sure, okay. The guilt was written all over him in neon letters and he couldn't figure out which hurt more, the illness or the guilt. (Was there going to be anything at all in his life that didn't seem designed to make him feel guilty? It didn't seem like it.) "Why the hell would he think -"

"You are such -" Yoon Shik sputtered, trailing off. His face was red. "You're so obtuse! I don't know what the hell happened between you two but if it's your fault you need to apologize, damn it."

"I know," Jae Shin said.

"No, I don't think you do!" Yoon Shik thumped his fist on the table, making Jae Shin's spoon jump and skitter. "You two were friends for twelve years and that whole time Yong Ha was apparently keeping this from you, and then you messed it up somehow but he still gave you another chance, don't ask me why, and now you're just -"

"I know!" Jae Shin said again, firmer this time. "Believe me, I know. I know, all right? You can't say anything that I haven't already said to myself."

"Why the hell are you saying it to yourself?" Yoon Shik snapped. "You should be saying it to him."

Jae Shin looked at him. Maybe it was his stupid cold but he felt chilled for a second, like someone had opened a window and let in the February air. "He doesn't want to see me," he said.

"He said he'd be in on Tuesday," Seon Joon said. "And if you didn't want him to come in you needed to tell him yourself."

"He said that?"

"Seon Joon doesn't tell lies," Yoon Shik said. "Believe me. It's obnoxious."

Jae Shin rubbed a hand over his face. "It's almost midnight," he said. "And it’s a Sunday. Don't you two have homes to go to? Doesn’t Seon Joon have class tomorrow?"

Yoon Shik and Seon Joon looked at each other. "Are you going to be all right?" Yoon Shik said. "We brought extra porridge. It's in the fridge. You just have to microwave it." He made a face. "Your fridge was pretty empty. Do you need us to -"

"I'll be fine," Jae Shin said. "Thanks. I mean... for bringing me my stuff." He looked down at the bowl, at the last dregs of porridge at the bottom. He hadn't eaten anything since that morning and probably wouldn't have if left to his own devices. "And for coming over, I guess."

The chairs squeaked on the floor as Yoon Shik and Seon Joon stood up. "Talk to him," Yoon Shik said. "Tuesday."  
  


  
"You think he's going to?" Yoon Hee said suddenly, after a few long minutes of silence between them. Her hands were buried deep in her pockets as they waited for the light over the crosswalk to change.

"Talk to him?" Seon Joon's mouth worked for a second. "Too early to say. Is it still better than a drama?"

"You know how you watch a drama and you want to reach through the screen and slap some sense into the characters?" Yoon Hee grinned. "I sort of feel like I just did that."

"I don't watch dramas," Seon Joon said. The light changed and he stepped off the sidewalk. "I find them mundane and meaningless. Also, 50,000 won."

Yoon Hee's jaw dropped and she nearly tripped over herself in an attempt to catch up. "50,000 won? But the boss said that he didn't know for twelve -"

"No," Seon Joon said. "He said it wasn't that simple. 50,000."

Yoon Hee's mouth went tight, lips thin and pressed together in a straight line. "I take back what I said about you being a cautious gambler."  
  


  
Just before midnight on Monday, the lock turned and the door opened and Moon Jae Shin stepped over the threshold. Scuffed the mud off his shoes. Wandered through the empty bakery like a ghost, still feeling slightly feverish and half dead, and pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen. Yong Ha had said he'd be in on Tuesday morning so the prep racks had to be pulled out of the freezer whether Jae Shin was sick or not and so he did it. It was his job, and he did it, and it was the middle of the night and the last time he'd been at the bakery in the middle of the night Yong Ha had been next to him. Rolling over on the mattress. Sighing in his sleep.

Maybe it was the fever, but when he finished pulling the racks and closing everything up and turning off all of the lights again he stopped at the attic door, hand on the door knob.

What if Yong Ha was upstairs, asleep? What if nothing had changed? What if Jae Shin was just being stupid?

He wouldn't be up there, Jae Shin told himself, turning the door knob. He wouldn't be asleep, Jae Shin told himself, taking the stairs two at a time. Everything had changed. Nothing was the same. He wouldn't be up there.

But what if he was?

Jae Shin opened the door to the office.

All of his stuff was where he'd left it - a couple of bags, a few piles of clothes. His pillows, the blanket, the mattress. The table lamp at the head of the bed.

But the room was cold. The light was off. All of Yong Ha's things were gone.

Jae Shin stood in the middle of the room, at the foot of the mattress, and looked down at the way the comforter was twisted on the sheet. The pillows on Yong Ha's side were still crushed up and wrinkled from the violent way he slept, and it just didn't seem fair somehow. They'd been so close to being okay and if he'd just - if he'd just taken a chance and said something, maybe everything would be fine now. Maybe it could even be good.

"This is fine," he said into the empty room.

He wasn't expecting Yong Ha to be there anyway.


	3. Possession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter: Moon Jae Shin breaks a habit; Jean-Baptiste Evan causes a lot of problems; Gu Yong Ha hears his name; Lee Seon Joon prevents a murder; Kim Yoon Hee acts as an audience stand-in.

Just after ten o'clock on Tuesday morning, the lock turned and the door opened and Moon Jae Shin stepped over the threshold. Scuffed the mud off his shoes. Hung his coat next to the door.

Unlike the night before the whole place was lit up - it was sunny for the first time in weeks, months maybe, and the morning light streamed through the big front windows like a floodlight, reflecting off of the glass tables and smooth slate tiles on the floor. The stained glass windows over the door beamed multi-colored circles all over the still empty display case but there was noise coming out of the kitchen. There was noise, the kind of clatter and racket and bang that only Gu Yong Ha could make.

Jae Shin steeled himself. Took a step into the bakery. Reminded himself that he'd rehearsed this too many times to count ("I'm sorry, I fucked up, I'm sorry, I fucked up, I'm sorry, I fucked up") but god damn it he had to say something, anything, and even if it came out wrong then at least in the end he'd still have -

"I didn't realize who you were."

He almost tripped over himself trying to turn to meet the sound, but he saved it at the last moment and came upright. "What?"

"I do not," Jean-Baptiste said through his teeth, lowering the book he was reading and glaring over it at Jae Shin, "speak Korean." He was sitting at one of the tables near the coffee bar, just out of the glare from the windows, just out of the line of sight from the front door. "I have no interest in speaking in Korean to you. Moreover, I know you speak French. Try to make an effort."

Jae Shin stared at him. The unfamiliar sounds and syllables arranged themselves awkwardly in his head and it took a second to register what Jean-Baptiste had said. (God, it had been way too long since high school French.) "What are you doing here?"

The corner of Jean-Baptiste's mouth quirked upward, but it seemed cheap, thin, a mannerism he'd picked up somewhere for the express purpose of undermining someone's confidence. "The pastry chef here," he said smoothly, laying the book down on the table. "You may know him? He's..." He paused. "... I suppose you could say I know him quite well."

"I know." Something twisted in Jae Shin's chest. Had Yong Ha and Jean-Baptiste...? No. No. He wasn't going to think about it. He'd only just barely managed to stop playing that goddamn kiss over and over and over and over in the back of his head. "You came with him?"

"Several times," Jean-Baptiste said. "I didn't realize who you were the other day. Jae Shin, right?"

"Right," Jae Shin echoed, still stuck on the 'several times' and trying to figure out why it bugged him. He couldn’t think. It had been too long since high school French and that goddamn kiss, that goddamn kiss, it was driving him crazy. "I know who you are. He's mentioned you to me."

"Apparently not enough." Jean-Baptiste stood up - and up, and up - all long well-turned limbs and pale skin and clothes that fit him and, and he was taller than Jae Shin. Not by a lot, a few centimeters at most, but just right then it felt more like miles. "I feel very strongly as though we need to have a conversation, you and I."

Jae Shin had been in a lot of fights. He'd learned how to size people up, how to measure up just how hard they'd fall. Where to hit. How to deal the maximum amount of damage without taking too many risks. That part of him was already working in the back of his head, and he could already tell that he could probably knock Jean-Baptiste back with one punch if he had to, four to get him on the ground, five or seven if he was tougher than he looked. (They usually were tougher than they looked. Something about being punched in the face made most people try to defend themselves.)

One punch. One punch. That's all it would take to kill any chance he had at getting Yong Ha to forgive him.

"I never meant -"

"I really don't care what you meant," Jean-Baptiste cut him off, "or even really what you did. That's not what I want to talk about. Are you in love with Yong Ha?"

Jae Shin opened his mouth. He closed his mouth. "What?"

Jean-Baptiste rolled his eyes. "Most people are. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Are you in love with Yong Ha?"

"I'm -" Jae Shin had never wanted to escape a conversation more than he wanted to escape this one, but hell - he didn't owe this asshole anything, right? Right. "No. No, I'm not."

"Good." Jean-Baptiste smiled then - really smiled, not that lopsided sneer he'd had before. "Most people are, so I’ll admit that expected you to be as well. But he's mine. He belongs to me." He moved to sit down again. Picked up his book. The conversation was over.

No. No. No.

"He doesn't belong to anybody," Jae Shin said, feeling himself fill up, feeling the inside of his ribcage crystallize with guilt and shame and steel. "He's Gu Yong Ha." He was Gu Yong Ha. He said it all the damn time and that's who he was, glasses or no glasses, distance or no distance. "He's Gu Yong Ha," Jae Shin repeated, rolling Yong Ha's name around in his mouth, feeling the shape of it, tasting it like something he hadn't had in years and couldn't quite place. (Once upon a time the name meant nothing to him, but now it meant everything.) "He doesn't belong to anyone."

"I think you'll find," Jean-Baptiste said, flipping the book open, "that that's no longer entirely the case."

"Maybe," Jae Shin said, and turned toward the kitchen door with his chest full of stones.

 

Maybe it was a reaction to the feeling of certain doom hanging over him, but Yong Ha made what may have been even more noise in the kitchen than usual that morning. Every mixing bowl had caused a personal offense, every pot and pan tried to pick a fight with him. Every recipe he could think of called for beaten eggs and whipped cream and he did both with more ferocity than was really technically necessary.

Jean-Baptiste was out there, sitting at a table, and he'd never tried anything Yong Ha had made. Well, he had - but it had been ages ago, before Yong Ha had any clue at all what he was doing. Hae Sook had told him he was a genius but he didn't care. He was all nerves and fury and why the hell hadn't Jae Shin called him? Why the hell hadn't he called? Yong Ha had been expecting the call for three whole days, had expected to pick up and be fired and hang up and at least at least at least Jean-Baptiste would be there next to him.

But the call hadn't come. Jae Shin hadn't called. Yong Ha had spent three days waiting for the phone to buzz, for his life to be over, but Jae Shin hadn't called. He hadn't called. (He hadn’t called.) Maybe he'd never see Jae Shin again. Maybe this time it was Jae Shin's turn to leave. Maybe -

"Hey."

Yong Ha froze, his back to the door leading into the bakery. A pastry knife in one hand, a bowl of frosting melting slightly under the bright kitchen lights. He wasn’t accustomed, usually, to being surprised, but Jae Shin could still surprise him even after all this time - his steps too light, his hands too deft. He hadn't even heard the hinges creak, hadn't heard that stupid broken bell on the front door bang around miserably on its chain.

He turned his head, chest tightening around his heart, his lungs. He didn't look at Jae Shin, just turned his head enough to acknowledge him. "What?"

A moment of silence, heavy and awkward. Then: "I'm sorry."

Yong Ha looked back down at the bowl of frosting. "For what?" He swallowed. "You gonna fire me?"

"For four years ago. I fucked up. I got things turned around." If Yong Ha closed his eyes he could see the look on Jae Shin's face: his jaw tight, his eyes hooded. "I thought - I mean... shit. It doesn't matter what I thought. I'm sorry."

Now Yong Ha turned to look over his shoulder. Jae Shin stood awkwardly, looking like he hadn't slept - or maybe he had slept, but the clothes he wore were what he'd slept in, rumpled as they were. Yong Ha pursed his lips. "Gross and weird," was all he said.

Jae Shin screwed his eyes shut and rubbed a hand over his face. "Christ, I know. I know. I'm sorry. I swear, I thought -"

"You thought what?"

"It doesn't matter. It's not going to fix what I did. It's not going to reverse the last four years. I fucked up. I hurt you, and I'm sorry, and if I could take it back -" He stopped, looked at the ceiling, mouth still open. "If I could take it back please know that I would. In a second."

Yong Ha stared at him. Watched him, watched the way his hands flexed and clenched, watched the way he almost seemed to shiver like a cat watching a bird, watched him close his mouth. Close his eyes. Yong Ha watched Jae Shin like he always had, saw him like maybe he never had before. Jae Shin didn’t apologize. It was just a fact of life. "You look terrible," he said finally. "Are you out of sleeping pills or something?"

"I caught a cold," Jae Shin mumbled, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. "I'm fine now."

"What the hell were you doing that you caught a cold?"

Jae Shin shook his head. "It's not important. Listen, I'm not going to fire you, but if you want to quit -"

"I don't," Yong Ha said, and hated himself for how quickly he said it. "I don't think... I don't think I want to quit." He looked back down at the pastry knife, at the bowl of frosting melting into a puddle. "So are we okay or something?"

The distance between them shifted open like a sinkhole, the ground falling out from under Jae Shin's feet. He'd hoped that if he apologized that this would be - that it would all be okay again, that they would be okay like they had been four years ago, six years ago, seven; when they'd been young and stupid and drank too much and stayed out too late and played pranks on Yong Ha's older brothers, all those times Jae Shin had been a horrible wing man and Yong Ha had still managed to go home with the girl, all those times Yong Ha had been an absolutely fantastic wing man and Jae Shin still hadn't gone home with the girl.

And they were okay now, kind of. There was a knot at the back of his skull that he hadn't even realized was there, curling open cautiously like a flower in the morning. The tension was loosening, and when Yong Ha grinned and looked back up at him from the bowl of frosting in his hand it was different. The look in his eye was different in a way that Jae Shin wouldn't have even recognized a month ago. They were almost okay, a lot closer to actually okay than even in the car back on Christmas eve when Jae Shin felt almost (almost) like things were back to normal.

But they weren't back to normal, were they? Not normal. Not really. Four years ago, six years ago, seven - Jae Shin hadn't been in love with Yong Ha then. (Well, maybe he had been, but hadn't recognized it - he remembered needing to call Yong Ha up in the middle of the night, he remembered waking up with Yong Ha asleep in his bed, he remembered all the times Yong Ha's hand on his arm had kept him sane.) Now they were okay, but Yong Ha was... Yong Ha was bigger than Jae Shin realized. _I am large_ , he'd said back in September. _I contain multitudes_.

Jae Shin had fallen in love (against all odds, against his will, trying his damnedest not to) with a Gu Yong Ha who was petty and distractible, who came up with rude nicknames, who stayed up too late, who barged into the bathroom uninvited, who disappeared for years without so much as a backward glance. A Gu Yong Ha who'd been riddled with flaws, who might at any moment get up and leave, who wouldn't talk about what he'd done or where he'd gone or what had happened to him. And he was still that Gu Yong Ha, still rude and flighty and petty and superficial, still insistent and underhanded and scheming. But he was more, too - and Jae Shin didn't know how much more he could take, knowing that this Gu Yong Ha (pale and perfect and rude and suddenly somehow infinitely complex) belonged to Mister Fucking French himself.

"Were you with Jean-Baptiste?" Jae Shin stepped forward without thinking. "In France? Four years ago?"

"With him?" Yong Ha blinked. "We were..." He screwed up his face thoughtfully, turning his eyes to the ceiling to remember. Four years ago Yong Ha had been in France, living in a tiny one bedroom apartment over a bakery, getting up early in the morning to tag along with Jean-Baptiste to the atelier to learn everything he possibly could about cake and pastries and all the weird things you could do with egg whites, staying out late smoking too many cigarettes and drinking too much wine, getting back to that tiny one bedroom apartment late at night (drunk as hell and smelling of smoke) and letting Jean-Baptiste do whatever the hell he wanted to him. It was strange and ridiculous and surreal and sometimes he wondered if he'd just dreamed it, if it had just been something he'd dreamed up, if it had been something he'd seen in a movie once and somehow started remembering it as if he'd been there. "I was with him."

If Yong Ha didn't know better he'd almost have thought he saw Jae Shin flinch, just a little. But he did know better. He did. "And now? You belong to him?"

"Oh, please. I'm Gu Yong Ha. As if anyone can own me. Did that cold make you stupid as well as disgusting?"

"Maybe," Jae Shin said. He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, one of those mannerisms Yong Ha remembered from years ago, the one that meant I Don't Know What I'm Doing. He swallowed, once, twice.

Yong Ha looked at him. "What?"

"Yong Ha," Jae Shin said through the lump in his throat (because he didn't know what else to say, because he didn't know how much he could take, because he couldn't stop himself from saying Yong Ha's name anymore), "Yong Ha, are you -"

"Do you know," Yong Ha interrupted suddenly, an odd look on his face, "that that's the first time?"

A moment of imbalance. Every time he found solid ground Yong Ha knocked him loose again. "The what? The first time what?"

"The first time you've said my name," Yong Ha said. He looked at the pastry knife in his hand. Set it down carefully on the butcher block counter. "The first time in four years."

Jae Shin opened his mouth. Closed it again. "What?

"At first I thought I was imagining things." Yong Ha glanced up sheepishly, a grin stretching over his face lopsided and strangely apologetic. "You know? But then I started listening for it, and you never said it. Not once. You didn't ask if it was me on the phone. You didn't introduce me to Kim Yoon Shik by name. So that's..." He trailed off. Shrugged with one shoulder. "So that's the first time in a while, that's all. That I've heard you say my name."

Jae Shin hadn't started out doing it on purpose. At the beginning, right after he'd gotten out of the army, everyone had been asking him about Yong Ha: where he'd gone, what had happened, had he sent any letters. He'd spent so much time thinking about it that he couldn't anymore, he couldn't, so he just stopped talking about it one day. His mother would bring it up and he'd change the subject, an old acquaintance would ask after Yong Ha and he'd pretend he hadn't heard. It had become a habit.

And then even when Jae Shin had called Yong Ha on the phone, all the way back in July (god, it felt like years), he hadn't been able to break the habit. He'd spent three years pretending that Gu Yong Ha didn't exist so even when Yong Ha was right in front of him, flashing him that self-satisfied grin and giving him shit, he couldn't shake it. Once something was a habit it was hard to break.

What he didn't say was: _I missed you too much._

What he didn't say was: _I missed you too much, I thought I was going to die if I said your name again._

What he didn't say was: _I miss you too much, I think I'm going to die if I don't keep saying your name._

But he didn’t deserve to say any of those things, he hadn’t earned it, he didn’t have the right. So instead he said: "Oh." And then: "I'm sorry."

Yong Ha rolled his eyes, shook his head. "You need to work on increasing your vocabulary. Sorry, sorry... do you know other words?"

"Jean-Baptiste is back?" Jae Shin said. "And you're with him."

"Something like that," Yong Ha conceded. He tipped the bowl half full of frosting toward him and sighed. "This is ruined. I have to make another batch. I really hate this kind of frosting, you know that? Seven whole minutes on the stove, and you have to stir it the whole time." He glanced up. "I'm not fired, and we're okay. Do you need anything else or can I get back to work?"

 

Jae Shin came out of the kitchen in a whirlwind, in a tornado, as the eye of his very own personal hurricane. Maybe that was how it was supposed to have gone, how it was always going to go, but still (still) he felt like he'd missed his chance somehow. He hadn't given any explanation because even after days of rehearsing it he couldn't make "I thought you thought I was gay" sound any less fucking stupid but Yong Ha had taken the apology and just... been all right. That was it. He'd just been all right. He felt like a hand grenade with nowhere to go, ready to explode but no one to pull the pin. He'd been expecting... what? A fight? A tearful reunion? He didn't know what he'd expected, but Yong Ha calmly frosting a cake and telling him he looked terrible hadn't been in any of his fevered expectations.

"Well?" Jean-Baptiste's voice hit him when he was only steps from the front door, hand outstretched to grab his coat off the hook. "Does he belong to me?"

Jae Shin turned his head and glared at Jean-Baptiste - who, for his part, didn't even have the decency to look up from his book. "He's Gu Yong Ha," he spat, (wielding Gu Yong Ha’s name like a weapon), yanking his coat off the hook with almost enough force to rip through the wool. "He doesn't belong to anyone."

 

"I don't like him," Kim Yoon Shik hissed.

"I know," Lee Seon Joon replied. "You've said so already. Several times."

Four whole days and Jean-Baptiste had come in every day at 4:30pm on the dot, ordered an espresso con panna and a variety of increasingly complex items (pain aux chocolate one day, a profiterole the next, rhubarb fraise the day after that), found a table by the window, and read an obnoxiously thick book until five o'clock when Gu Yong Ha finished up the last of his chores and came out. Jean-Baptiste would get up. Say something in French, and then they would leave - always, always, always with Jean-Baptiste's arm around Yong Ha's waist and a smugly territorial backwards glance.

"I'm going to start shorting him on whipped cream," Yoon Shik growled, slamming the portafilter into the hopper with more force than was strictly necessary. "I'm going to make his coffee weak. I'm going to make his drink half decaf. I'm going to spit in it. How dare he order the boss's drink."

"I'm surprised at you," Seon Joon murmured dispassionately, not even looking over at Yoon Shik. "Such vitriol from one so short. Do you even have the physical capacity for this much loathing?"

"Yes," Yoon Shik spat. "You have no idea how much loathing I can carry in this weak vessel of tendon and bone. I am 98% loathing right now. Look at him!" He gestured broadly toward the window where Jean-Baptiste sat reading his book, his espresso con panna practically untouched, his rhubarb fraise only half consumed. "He's smug. Smug and horrible."

"He hasn't even done anything. He just comes in and waits for Gu Yong Ha."

"He's done enough." Yoon Shik splashed the espresso over steamed milk with a barely-contained fury. "He's broken up my OTP."

Seon Joon paused. Thought for a second. Gave Yoon Shik a look of pure, unadulterated confusion. "Your what?"

"My OTP!" Yoon Shik shook a fist in an expression of impotent rage. "I wouldn't expect you to understand, Mister Dramas Are Mundane And Meaningless. I have been _waiting_ for the boss and Gu Yong Ha to just _suck it up_ and _make out_ for -"

"Stop!" Seon Joon slapped his palm over Yoon Shik's mouth, his face transformed into a rictus of embarrassment and panic. "You can't just... just don't," he finished stupidly. "This isn't the place. This isn't the time."

Yoon Shik shoved Seon Joon's hand away from his face and made a face as he reached up to set the completed drink up on the coffee bar. "I don't like him," he repeated. "I don't like him at all."

"I know," Seon Joon said. "You've said so already. Several times."

 

In the last seven days Gu Yong Ha had had more sex than he'd had over the last five months combined. It was like Jean-Baptiste was making up for lost time, like he'd saved up everything for the moment that Yong Ha was back in his life again. That first time had been rough and loud and desperate and perfect and lasted maybe all of ten minutes, and each subsequent time it had taken more time, gotten a little less desperate... but it was still rough and loud and so perfect as to almost be annoying.

He still hadn't gotten the neighbors that fruit basket. He had to owe them a dozen of the damn things by now.

Afterward they lay on the mattress, the sheet coming off the top left corner, Yong Ha's skin flushed and damp, Jean-Baptiste's hand curled protectively over the sharp blade of Yong Ha's hip bone. The air in the studio apartment felt hot and heavy and like it took extra effort to breathe, though maybe that was just Yong Ha's lungs forgetting how to work.

"You're a genius." Jean-Baptiste dipped his head down so that his mouth was against Yong Ha's temple. "Do you know that?"

"Of course. Didn't you?"

Jean-Baptiste seemed to consider this for a moment. "I didn't realize that you were a genius in the kitchen." The hand over Yong Ha's hip bone tensed to grip him more firmly, adjusting how they fit against each other. "Four years ago you could barely make a compote worth mentioning, and now... now I don't know if I've ever met anyone who can recreate my recipes as perfectly as you do."

"I have my own recipes too, you know." Yong Ha sighed, angling his chin upward so Jean-Baptiste's lips were on the skin of his throat. "Everyone loves them just as much."

"But there isn't anyone," Jean-Baptiste countered, "anyone at all who's going to love you as much as I do."

"I know," Yong Ha said, because he did.

"You know I'm here for more than one reason, right?"

"I know," Yong Ha said, wishing he didn't.

Jean-Baptiste propped himself up on one elbow. "We're opening another school." He ran a hand absent-mindedly down the plane of Yong Ha's stomach. "In... what's that city called? The other big one, in the south. All the city names sound so ridiculous."

"Busan," Yong Ha said, slowly losing his grip on whatever focus he'd had a few minutes ago. "You're thinking of Busan."

"Sure," Jean-Baptiste said. His hand lingered again at Yong Ha's hip. "We're opening a school in that city. I'm going to need a head teacher, you know. Someone who knows my recipes. Someone who speaks both Korean and French."

"Oh?" Yong Ha leaned into Jean-Baptiste, willing the hand at his hip to finish what it started, barely paying attention to the words coming out of Jean-Baptiste's mouth.

"I was hoping you would do it."

Yong Ha opened his eyes and thought of the look on Jae Shin's face, the image rising unbidden in his mind like a landmine poking up out of the earth. The look on Jae Shin's face Tuesday morning when he'd apologized, when he'd looked half dead, when his clothes had been wrinkled and terrible. When he'd said Yong Ha's name out loud for the first time in four years.

Damn. Damn. Damn. If Jean-Baptiste had asked five days ago, six days, a week - maybe he would have hesitated for a few minutes. Asked if he could think about it, maybe. Talked to someone about it. But the answer would be yes, definitely, absolutely, when could he start, when did Jean-Baptiste need him?

But Jae Shin had apologized. He'd apologized. And the look on his face -

"I don't know," he said. "My job -"

"Didn't you say that you didn't know if you'd even have this job soon?"

Yong Ha shook his head. "Just... let me think about it, all right? I'll need to find a new pastry chef for the shop, I can't just leave them high and dry, and... What are you doing?"

"I love you." Jean-Baptiste rolled him onto his back, pushed him into the bed. "I missed you. Despite everything, you look beautiful. So I'm going to fuck you again."

This time it was rough and loud and perfect - but it was jealous, too. Grasping. Possessive. When Jean-Baptiste moved against him it was with a force and a violence that hadn't been present in such potency before, and when Yong Ha came Jean-Baptiste bit into his throat, dug fingernails into his skin, gripped his hips tight.

"You're mine," he said, rolling off of Yong Ha and back onto the mattress. "You belong to me."

"Okay," Yong Ha said, too stupid with sex to argue. "Okay."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The name thing is a little silly. It started as a little nod to the use of nicknames in canon - they hardly ever call each by their real names unless it's a particularly emotional or honest moment - but sort of turned into something bigger. (You can go back if you like. In Restoration Jae Shin never once says Yong Ha's name out loud. I've been doing this the _whole time_.)


	4. Stay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter: Kim Yoon Shik stands his ground; Moon Jae Shin fucks up again; Gu Yong Ha makes a choice.

The metal chopsticks dropped out of Kim Yoon Shik's fingers, hitting the glass tabletop with a ringing clang. "He what?" Yoon Shik stuttered out, rising to his feet. "You can't be serious."

Jae Shin barely paused - the brief moment of stillness almost imperceptible if you weren't looking for it - before going back to stirring the sauce into his noodles. He didn't look up but his eyes lost focus for a second, and he seemed to lean over his bowl just a little more intently than he had a moment ago.

A hand came up and wrapped around Yoon Shik's elbow. Seon Joon shook his head and pulled Yoon Shik back into his chair. "Let him talk," he said simply, before turning his head to look at Gu Yong Ha. "What were you saying?"

It was one of those quiet moments in between waves of people and for once all four of them were in the bakery at the same time. Yong Ha wasn't quite done with his shift, Seon Joon had just gotten there, Yoon Shik was halfway through the day, and Jae Shin was - he was sticking around like he'd been doing a lot for the last couple of weeks, haunting the building like a ghost, distracted and distractible. Some of the weird tension had gone out of the bakery since the apology - the conversations were a little lighter, the atmosphere a little less electric.

But Jean-Baptiste kept coming in. Kept showing up every day and tightening things up again. Yong Ha was okay, better even, but Seon Joon was hard pressed to keep Yoon Shik from committing murder and Jae Shin vanished like a magic trick whenever Jean-Baptiste came around.

Yong Ha grinned, but his mouth was tight at the corners. He turned his hand, wrapping some jjajangmyeon around the chopsticks, before seeming to think better of it and letting the chopsticks rest on the side of the bowl instead. He leaned back in his chair. "Jean-Baptiste is opening a pastry school," he said again. "In Busan. I mean, he's not doing it by himself... the school he works for is doing it, and he's heading the project."

"Right," Jae Shin said. The word came out rough and sarcastic and quiet, muttered under his breath and accompanied by a half-shake of his head like he was responding to something in a conversation no one else was privy to.

"He wants me to sign on as one of the head teachers," Yong Ha went on, ignoring Jae Shin.

"Are you going to do it?" Yoon Shik snatched up his chopsticks again, holding them in one clenched fist like a weapon, or a handhold, or a life preserver in a strong current. "Are you going to leave?"

Yong Ha shook his head. "I haven't decided yet."

"Boss," Yoon Shik moaned, reaching out and shaking Jae Shin's shoulder. "You have to stop him."

Jae Shin glanced up at Yong Ha. "How much is the offer?"

Yong Ha grimaced and seemed to count on his fingers for a second. "Two... maybe three million a month? Jean-Baptiste keeps talking about it in euros, and I don't remember the exchange rate. It changes all the time, you know?"

Yoon Shik smacked Jae Shin on the arm. "Why didn't you give him a bonus?! This is terrible!"

"Don't hit me," Jae Shin growled, flinching and nearly dropping his chopsticks.

"Yoon Shik," Seon Joon choked out, pushing Yoon Shik back down into his chair. "Don't hit the boss."

Yoon Shik pushed Seon Joon off of him and leaned over the table. "Gu Yong Ha, you can't - we still need you!"

"Stop it," Jae Shin said, his voice quiet.

Seon Joon and Yoon Shik froze and turned to look at him. Yong Ha just smiled a tiny, wry smile to himself and picked up his chopsticks again, focusing on the jjajangmyeon.

"Yong Ha," Jae Shin said. He glanced up, looked at Yong Ha for the first time during the whole conversation. His face was unreadable - all hooded eyes and slack jaw - but his eyes were hard. "Are you serious about this?"

Yong Ha shrugged with one shoulder. "I can't decide. It's a lot of money."

"You can't," Yoon Shik started to say again, but Jae Shin waved a hand.

"Stop. We don't have a say in this." He stood up. Picked up his bowl, chopsticks jammed into the twisted noodles. "This is his choice to make."

Seon Joon watched him move. "Where are you going?"

"Upstairs," Jae Shin said. "I have some bookkeeping to do."

 

For a while Jae Shin thought about letting him go. Maybe telling him to go, even. The money was too good, and what reason did Yong Ha have to stay besides the money? Sure, they were pretty much okay these days (if such a thing were even possible), but their friendship had been too fucked up and broken for too long. They might never be okay again, not really. What had happened would haunt them for... for a long time. For the rest of their lives, maybe. He couldn’t try to keep him, not with things the way they were. Right?

For a while Jae Shin thought about letting him go, telling him to go - but instead he spent hours going over the books. Looking up his bank balance. Trying to figure out what he'd have to borrow from his father, how to ask for that much money, how he'd be able to pay it back. In the end he couldn't figure out a way to make a counter offer that was anything other than laughable, and what was more money when somebody like Jean-Baptiste (tall and blond and French with a personal history miles long) was offering something like this, anyway?

He couldn't tell Yong Ha to stay. He couldn’t ask him to stay. He couldn't tell him why he needed him without it sounding like some kind of massive guilt trip. He couldn't tell him anything; it wasn't important, anyway. (Why hadn’t it been him? Jae Shin had asked that a thousand times. A million.)

Jae Shin leaned back in his office chair. Covered his face with his hands. Took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds. He hadn't started up the bakery in order to fix things with Yong Ha, remember? Remember? Bringing Yong Ha on had been a whim at best, and now that it hadn't really worked out… well. He still had everything else to sort through. He still had things to get done. To figure out. To take care of.

He'd just... he'd just have to find somebody else. It was going to be okay. Everything was going to be fine.

 

"What is this?"

"It's cake," Jae Shin said, making a face. "What the hell does it look like?"

Yoon Shik looked at him, his face screwed up into an expression of confusion and suspicion. "Why do you have so much cake? You don't even like cake."

"It's not for me," Jae Shin growled. "Just sit down, will you? I bought out all the best cake shops in Seoul."

Yoon Shik tentatively pulled the chair away from Jae Shin's desk and sat down, knees together and ankles crossed delicately like a girl. "Why did you -"

"I know how much cake you eat." Jae Shin shoved one of the little cardboard circles forward, a chocolate mousse pyramid delicately placed in the center. "There's nothing I can do to - that we can do to keep Yong Ha from going to Busan. We have to find somebody new. I need you to try these and pick somebody out so I can go recruit."

Yoon Shik went just a tiny bit pale and he tightened his jaw. "You can’t just - I'm not going to. I don't want to. You can't make me."

"Just try some damn cake, will you?"

It was with a groan of disdain that Yoon Shik grabbed the mousse pyramid with his bare hand, biting into it with no decorum whatsoever. "It's sweet," he spat out after a second, crushing it back down onto the desk. "Funny aftertaste."

"So? Try something else."

"No." Yoon Shik's mouth went hard, his lips a straight line. Jae Shin recoiled slightly - the only other place he'd seen that expression was his mother's face, and right now Yoon Shik could give his mother a run for her money. "No, this isn't right. He hasn't even decided, and you're trying to force him out? You’re just going to let him leave? You can’t let him leave, boss."

"It's not up to us, I said."

"I don't care what it takes," Yoon Shik bit out, standing up again. He picked up the half-eaten pyramid and threw it into the trash, wiping the mousse from his hand off onto his black barista apron. "Offer him more money. Buy him dinner. Give him an all-expenses-paid vacation. Hell, try sleeping with him -" Jae Shin recoiled and opened his mouth to protest "- just don't let him leave, you jackass!"

"Hey!" Jae Shin clenched his hands into fists. "Where do you get off, calling me a jackass? I'm your boss - do you even want this job?"

"Not if this is the way you treat your friends," Yoon Shik bit back, pulling himself up to his full not-very-tall height. He barely came up to Jae Shin's chin and it would have been funny if not for the look on his face. Jae Shin had no doubt that if it really came down to it Yoon Shik could probably scratch his eyes out if they ever got into a real fight. (Give him a fight against a big muscle-bound thug any day - it was the tiny ones you had to watch out for.) "He hasn't even decided. Can’t you just give him time to think about it? Better yet, maybe try convincing him to stay instead of running him out the door."

"The money isn't there," Jae Shin said. "There isn't -"

"Maybe money isn't the only thing he values," Yoon Shik said. He looked down at the collection of cake slices melting gently on the desk and made a face, wiping the traces of chocolate from his lips with the back of his hand. "Throw this away. You wasted your money. I'm going to go back to work - unless you want me to try somebody else's coffee to pick my own replacement?"

"No." Jae Shin rubbed a hand over his face. "Just... go downstairs. Message received, loud and clear."

 

Yong Ha pulled his chef coat off and dropped it into the hamper under the row of coat hooks before pulling his jacket from its hook and pulling it on. The shoulder bag came down next, slung over his shoulder. He ran a hand through his hair. Adjusted his glasses. Headed for the swinging door out into the bakery.

When he came out Jae Shin was in the doorway of the attic stairs, his hand on the doorknob. He looked like a martyr facing down a firing squad - pale with nerves but resolute. "No Jean-Baptiste today?"

Yong Ha shook his head. "He's down in Busan for a couple of days, doing some actual work. It's just me, all alone in my tiny little cold apartment."

"I can give you a ride home," Jae Shin said, the words coming out all at once. He stepped forward, swinging the door closed behind him. "It's not… I don’t mind. It’s not a problem. Yoon Shik and Seon Joon can handle themselves for a little while."

"Yoon Shik can handle Seon Joon, at any rate." Yong Ha grinned. Ever since Jae Shin had apologized the tension had loosened but Jae Shin acted like a kicked dog, equal parts guilty and obnoxious. "Yeah, you can give me a ride home. Where's your car?"

Jae Shin pulled his keys out of the pocket of his jeans. "Not far."

 

Yoon Hee tried like hell to pretend she wasn't watching them as they walked out of the bakery, but it wasn't terribly successful. "Do you think it'll work?" she hissed at Seon Joon.

"Will what work?" he whispered back.

"That," she said, nodding at the front door as it swung shut behind Jae Shin and Yong Ha. "I think I really got through to the boss the other day. I think he's going to try to convince Gu Yong Ha to stay."

 

In the alleyway under Gu Yong Ha's apartment Jae Shin sat in his car, fingers drumming idly, nervously on the steering wheel. He took a deep breath. Held it. Thought for a second. "So have you given it any more thought? Jean-Baptiste's offer. Are you going to take it?"

Yong Ha sat back in the passenger seat, kicking one of his boots up onto the dashboard. "I still can't decide," he said, running a hand over the back of his neck. It wasn’t something Jae Shin had seen him do before and there was a tiny little masochistic part of him that wondered if Yong Ha was starting to pick up Jean-Baptiste’s mannerisms through growing familiarity. "I mean, it's a lot of money, you know? Enough to keep me in high fashion for the rest of my life. Medium height fashion, anyway."

Jae Shin tapped the steering wheel one, two, three more times and then stilled, his hand resting on his leg. It was dark already, six o’clock and dark. The sun hadn’t really set all the way but the buildings around them blocked out the light so thoroughly it might as well have gone down hours ago for the good it did. The streetlights out on the main road were coming on and the porch lights around them were being turned on one by one and the sky was streaked red. "Yeah. It's a lot of money."

"But god, Busan?" Yong Ha grinned at Jae Shin and hissed through his teeth in an expression of uncertainty and distaste. "I mean... don't get me wrong, the ocean is nice and everything, but I'm really more of a Seoul kind of guy. The clubs are better. More clothing stores. And anyway what would you do without me?"

Silence in the car for a second. What would he…? What would he do without him? Jae Shin looked up at him. "What?"

"I mean..." Yong Ha waved a hand vaguely, palm going back and forth in an odd sort of dismissive motion. "You know, the bakery. The kids. It's not like you know any other genius patissieres to take over for me. Seon Joon isn't as useless as he looks but it would take him years to be able to make a croissant that isn't both rock hard and the material embodiment of disappointment." He smiled sheepishly and brought a hand up as if to scratch his head, glancing at Jae Shin out of the corner of his eye. "Even if I do go I'd have to find a replacement, right?"

"Right," Jae Shin said. He took a breath. Wrapped his hands around the steering wheel - for strength, for balance, for support. "Hey, listen - this offer..."

"Are you going to tell me to take it?"

"No.” He managed a laugh, more sarcastic than anything. “I think Yoon Shik would kill me."

Yong Ha hissed again. Shook his head. "He's a feisty one. Kind of reminds me of your mom, you know that?"

Jae Shin looked up. "Are you?”

“Am I what? Serious about Yoon Shik reminding me of your mom?”

“Are you going to take the offer? The money... I mean, I don't... the money isn't there to put up much of a counter offer," he finished stupidly.

"I said I still can't decide, remember?" Yong Ha shook his head. Grinned again. (Had he stopped?) "Yeah, the money's really, really good, but also - I mean, come on. It's Busan." He looked at Jae Shin, and his face settled suddenly, gradually, going from that curling sarcastic expression to something suddenly much more penetrating. Curious. "If you aren't going to tell me to take it, are you going to ask me to stay?"

"It's your decision to make," Jae Shin said, feeling stupid, feeling crazy. This wasn’t going the right way. None of this was going the right way. He couldn't bring himself to ask Yong Ha to stay - and did he even want him to, if this is how the conversation was going to go? Yeah, yeah, all the bullshit that had happened was his fault, but this was bigger than that. Bigger than their fight. Bigger than Kim Yoon Shik and Kim Yoon Shik’s opinion and the look on Kim Yoon Shik’s face that reminded him of his mother.

But still. Still. He couldn't ask Yong Ha to stay; how selfish would that be? Too selfish, even for him. So Jae Shin didn't ask and just stayed quiet. Just stayed quiet and wished he was dead. (It should have been him.)

"Hm," Yong Ha sighed, looking almost - was that disappointment? Probably not. Wishful thinking. Shut up, shut up. "True."

"I mean, we'd have to find a replacement -"

"And there just isn't anybody as good as me." Yong Ha took off his glasses. Huffed on the lenses and pulled out the bottom of his shirt to polish off the fingerprints. (Jae Shin couldn’t look at him. Months ago Yong Ha had stopped being a stranger with his glasses on but still, with them off he was too much like that kid he used to know - but not that well, it turned out. Not well enough to keep himself from fucking up.) "Why did you open the bakery, anyway? You didn't know anything about cake until I happened to you. You don't even like cake."

"I just... have to get some stuff figured out, that's all."

"Yeah," Yong Ha said, sliding the glasses back on his face, "but can't you do that with something else? Why a bakery? Why make life harder for yourself than it has to be?"

"Who fucking cares?" Jae Shin’s hands tightened on the steering wheel of their own accord. Why make life harder than it had to be? "Who fucking cares?"

Yong Ha looked up at him. "What?"

"Why even live at all? Life is always going to be hard. No matter what you do -” Jae Shin let his head fall back against the head rest and stared up at the roof of the car “- terrible shit is going to happen. Terrible shit is always going to happen. I might as well be dead. I should be dead. Why not open a bakery? At least I'll be doing something."

"You might as well be dead?" Yong Ha clenched his jaw. "You should be dead? If life is worth so little to you than who the hell am I?” He sat back against the seat. Pressed his palms down on his legs like he was trying to keep himself from doing something he’d regret. “What am I worth? Nothing? Less than nothing? Why am I even here? You can't even ask me to stay."

Jae Shin stared at him. "Yong Ha, that's not -"

"Fuck it," Yong Ha said, pulling on the door handle. "That's it. I’m done. You keep asking whether I'm going to take the offer, here's your answer."

"God damn it." Jae Shin reached out and latched onto Yong Ha's wrist. Heart in his throat, adrenalin pumping through his veins. Not again. Not again. Not again. (It should have been him.) "Yong Ha, please. That's not what I meant. Give me a chance, you know that I'm not -"

Yong Ha slipped free. "We'll talk later," he said, his voice quiet. "Just... stop pushing yourself so hard, all right?" He looked Jae Shin in the eye. "Take a break sometime."

Just like four years ago, the door slammed and Yong Ha was gone.

"God fucking damn it," Jae Shin said into the darkness.

It should have been him.

 

The door closed. The lock sang. Yong Ha leaned against the wood, closed his eyes against the dark of his unlit apartment, and slid down the door until he was sitting on the floor of his entryway. Was Jae Shin ever going to fucking learn?

"God fucking damn it," Yong Ha said into the darkness.


	5. Bad Habits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter: Moon Jae Shin is kind of fucked up.

Moon Jae Shin opened his eyes.

He could have sworn he'd gone to sleep in his own bed, in his own room, in his own apartment. He'd sat on the edge of the mattress and taken his damn sleeping pill like he had almost every night for the last twenty years (twenty years? since when was he old enough to do anything for twenty years?) and laid down and turned off the light on his bedside table and slipped into darkness.

He could have sworn, but when he opened his eyes he was staring up at the yellowing plaster ceiling of the attic over the bakery. The light was strange, golden like the middle of the day, or sunset or sunrise or somewhere in between. He felt like he'd been asleep for only a minute (maybe even just a few seconds) but then how could it be morning? How could it be morning, and how could he be in the attic? He sat up and the world spun gently around him like water going down a drain, he felt drunk, he couldn't keep his balance, but the room was lit up bright and he was just a little bit too warm and the hand on his back was soft and cool and -

\- and the hand on his back. The hand on his back?

The hand on his back was soft and cool and he knew it almost as well as if it belonged to him. He'd felt these hands on his skin before, on his face, on his arm, he'd memorized them over years of familiarity without ever meaning to, without ever realizing it.

In the strange light of the attic (gold and alien and somehow oddly familiar) Jae Shin turned. He wasn't alone. He'd gone to bed alone, sure, (alone and somewhere else), but he wasn't alone now.

"Yong Ha," Jae Shin said. His voice echoed, the hum of it low and quiet and dampened, and in his head he didn't seem to sound like himself. "Are you awake?"

Yong Ha. Gu Yong Ha. That damn kid, the cause of and solution to all of his problems, lying on the mattress next to him as if he'd never left. As if nothing had ever happened between them. His eyes were closed and his face was smooth and he... and he wasn't wearing a shirt. (He wasn't wearing a shirt. Why wasn't he wearing a shirt?) His hand was on Jae Shin's back and he was lying on the mattress next to him and the sheet was twisted at his waist and his eyes were closed and for some reason he wasn't wearing a shirt.

Jae Shin leaned over. Propped himself up on one arm. Swallowed his nerves. This wasn't right but he couldn't remember why. "Yong Ha. Hey. Why are you here?"

Yong Ha opened his eyes, looked at him, (his face still blurred and half asleep), and smiled. Didn't say anything. Reached up, smoothed his hand from Jae Shin’s back to his side, over his rib cage, over his chest, until finally his fingers hooked around the back of Jae Shin’s neck and he pulled himself up (why was he so light? it didn't make sense) and up and up and he was right there, he was right there -

“Hey,” Jae Shin said again, his voice tight in his throat.

\- and Yong Ha pushed against him. Tightened his hand over the back of Jae Shin’s neck like he had the night before Jae Shin had walked through the gate into Nonsan. Sighed and curved into him like he had the night before Jae Shin had walked through the gate into Nonsan. Pressed his lips to Jae Shin’s mouth like he never had, the way he never ever had, the way Jae Shin had never let himself think about for fear of someone knowing his thoughts just by looking at his face.

There was a moment where Jae Shin entertained the thought of jerking back, pushing off, rubbing the taste of Yong Ha’s lips from his mouth with the back of his hand but that moment of fear ended up overridden and instead he reached up and gripped the back of Yong Ha’s neck as if hanging onto a handhold on the side of a cliff.

This wasn't right, but he couldn't remember why. He didn't care why. When they’d laid there on the hotel bed in Nonsan, drunk and spinning and useless and Jae Shin had reached out like some kind of desperate idiot - he could still remember the way Yong Ha had smelled. The way he tasted. The way his skin felt. And now Yong Ha didn't smell anything like he did then, (salt and smoke and lemon soju), he smelled like sleep and clean laundry. He didn't taste anything like he did then. But his skin, the feel of him, the way he moved. Something wasn't right (something wasn't right) but whatever it was, it wasn't Yong Ha. Yong Ha was exactly right. Strange and sleepy and silent, but still exactly right.

Yong Ha moved against him, slow and careful like he was trying to find something in the dark, laying back down onto the mattress and pulling Jae Shin down with him. Jae Shin had never done anything with anyone and he didn't know what he was doing (was he ever going to know what he was doing?) but when Yong Ha pulled him down he didn't try to get away, just fell into him - curved a hand around his waist, along his hips, fingers slipping just barely under the sheet.

He smelled like sleep and clean laundry and his skin was cool and Jae Shin was almost able to forget how much he didn't deserve this. How much he didn't deserve to want this. How much he didn't deserve to even still be alive. Yong Ha leaned his head back and Jae Shin found his jaw. His throat. The hollow where his shoulder met his neck, and god, god, god -

Yong Ha sighed and arched his back and wrapped his arms around Jae Shin’s neck and opened his eyes and opened his mouth and when he spoke the voice that came out of him wasn't his own.

“It should have been you,” Yong Ha said, in a voice that sounded just like Moon Geun Soo.

Moon Jae Shin opened his eyes.

The horrible red light of his alarm clock told him it was almost five o’clock in the morning and he was in his own bed. He was in his own apartment. He was alone - really alone - and somewhere out there in the world Gu Yong Ha was asleep next to someone who wasn't him. Somewhere out there in the world was somebody who deserved to be happy, who deserved to be alive.

“It should have been me,” Jae Shin said into the darkness.

 

It was almost midnight, and Jae Shin was alone in the bakery. The streetlights outside the big picture windows at the front of the shop glowed a sort of greeny yellow on the soaking wet street. It was raining: the kind of rain that doesn't seem to know what it's doing, exactly, so it comes and goes in fits and bursts, one minute pounding the pavement like a million tiny hammers and the next minute doing its best impression of fog. (He couldn’t stop thinking about the last time the weather had been like this, back in December, when Yong Ha had come in drunk and furious and had ended up staying.)

Yoon Shik had gone home at eight o'clock and Jae Shin had come in at ten to relieve Seon Joon. Yong Ha... Yong Ha hadn't come in at all - and now he was alone, and the shop was empty, and it was almost midnight. It was almost midnight and the display case was almost completely empty. No one had been refilling it. No one had been able to refill it. Yoon Shik hadn't spoken to him in days, wouldn't even look at him.

At least Jean-Baptiste had stopped coming in too. Small blessings.

The bell over the door clonked - who the fuck cared if he fixed it? - and he looked up.

"You're later than usual," Jae Shin said.

The woman shook the water off her umbrella and smiled loosely, coming toward him across the stone tile floor. "I had to work late," she replied simply, twitching the scarf tighter around her neck. She looked tired like she always did, but maybe even more today than normal. The shadows under her eyes were so dark they almost looked bruised. "I have to get something good, or my husband..." She pressed her lips together. "He doesn't like it when I have to work late."

"If my wife were so lovely I'm sure I would miss her just as much," Jae Shin said, hating himself. "It's been busy so we don't have much left, but..." It was a lie. They hadn't been busy. Yong Ha just hadn't been there. Maybe he was all the way to Busan by now.

She sighed and leaned over to peer into the case, squinting a little. "You really don't. What's this pink one?"

"Rhubarb fraise." Jae Shin slid open the back of the case and pulled out the gold cardboard square that held the cake, set it gently and carefully on the top of the case. "Rhubarb compote with strawberry mousse on a tart base, with almond creme."

Her mouth worked for a second, one of her fingernails clicking nervously against the wood handle of her umbrella. "It'll do," she said. “Could I have four?”

"I'll wrap them up for you, shall I?"

She smiled.

 

By two o'clock in the morning the rain had stopped. Jae Shin counted the cash drawer. Swept the leaves out of the corners. Locked the doors, closed the blinds. Didn't pull the prep racks because there was nothing to pull at all anymore - Yong Ha's carefully stocked back-up pastry in the freezer had been completely depleted. They were really truly out of everything and Jae Shin hadn't had the time or the know-how or the energy or the motivation to go out and find somebody new.

Finding a replacement was like admitting that Yong Ha was gone for good, and god... god, he wasn't ready. If he hadn't had that fucking stupid dream then maybe he could do it.

Jae Shin stood in the street in front of the bakery and stared up at it in the darkness, smoking a cigarette and wishing he was dead. It wasn't the first cigarette he'd smoked since that day in September when Yong Ha had showed up at his apartment out of the blue and told him not to smoke. Nor had been the one before that, or the one before that, or the one before that - the first one he'd smoked since September had been right after Yong Ha had slammed the passenger side door of his car and walked out of his life for the second goddamn time. Since that first cigarette there had been a dozen more, two dozen, three dozen, a hundred maybe. All his bad habits were coming back to keep him company in his moment of weakness.

He tried to pull another drag off the cigarette but just burned his fingers instead, the embers creeping up and nearly catching the filter, so he hissed a curse and dropped the butt on the wet pavement, crushing it with his heel. Then he was just swearing, quietly at first, then louder and louder and louder until he was shouting, yelling, practically screaming.

Young Shin was dead. He'd been dead for twenty goddamn years and Jae Shin was almost twice his age now but he still thought of Young Shin as being older than him. He'd fucked things up with Yong Ha not once but twice now - the first time Yong Ha had almost gotten himself killed, and this time Jae Shin had driven him straight into the arms of another man. The bakery was all but finished. He didn't even know where to start. He'd fucked up everything from the very beginning (the very, very beginning) and now it was just - it was just all coming together like the lid of a coffin, closing in over him.

All his bad habits had come back. He picked up one of the stones from the side of the street and threw it so hard into the front window of the bakery that the glass shattered and fell in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We can pull through this together. One more sad chapter, one rough chapter, and then we're gonna be okay. We can do it. (The edits on this are going to be the death of me. It's like trying to build a tree fort out of cooked noodles.)


	6. Rhubarb Fraise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter: Lee Seon Joon isn't bothered at all; Kim Yoon Hee always wants bibimbap; Moon Jae Shin feels sorry for himself; Gu Yong Ha looks bad in black; Jean-Baptiste Evan asks stupid questions.

The sun had set, but there in the back end of winter it didn't mean much. It was still only barely evening, but the sun had set and the air was cold and the clouds were heavy and it was starting to snow.

Lee Seon Joon had expected to be bothered, in the beginning, when Kim Yoon Hee had started switching out her skirts for jeans, her trim feminine jackets for sweatshirts and double-breasted pea coats, her ballet flats and high heels for boots and oxfords. The first time he'd seen her after she'd gotten her hair cut he'd almost swallowed his own tongue - his first thought had been: who would do that to her? Who would do that to Yoon Hee's hair?

When she told him what she was doing, why she'd cut her hair, why she was suddenly wearing masculine clothing and going out without makeup, he'd expected to be bothered just as much. The change would be too much. Everything cute about her would be gone. She wouldn't be herself anymore, not really.

But now, in the dark of the early evening, with what was probably the very last snow of winter swirling around them, Kim Yoon Hee stood next to him in a thick knit cap. A double-breasted pea coat that made her look even flatter than she was already. Baggy jeans. Winter boots she'd bought in the little boys' section of the shoe store. Her face was clean and bright and she hadn't put on even a little bit of makeup that day, her hair was freshly cut and stuck out from under her cap in what he knew would be a mess once she took it off. Her nose was red and her voice was rough when she spoke and she'd learned to make the timbre of her voice just a little bit deeper and she was gorgeous, she was gorgeous. Everything cute about her was still right there, right at the top, still turning him upside down like she always did.

The light changed and she stepped off the sidewalk into the crosswalk. "Did you want to get chicken?" she said over her shoulder. "I'm kind of more in the mood for bibimbap."

"You're always in the mood for bibimbap," he said, coming back to himself and stepping off the sidewalk to follow after her. "I want seaweed soup."

"Don't you have a test tomorrow?"

"What, are you superstitious?"

"You never know," she replied, cocking her head to one side. "Better safe than sorry."

"If one puts the energy reserved for worrying about superstition into studying and hard work instead, one might eat whatever one likes without concern."

"So seaweed soup, then?" She paused on the sidewalk and glanced up at him.

Seon Joon cleared his throat. "Maybe kimchi stew. It's too cold for seaweed soup."

"That's what I thought." Yoon Hee reached up and sweetly patted him on the face. "You need all the help you can get."

Without thinking, Seon Joon brought his hand up. Wrapped his fingers loosely around Yoon Hee's wrist. Held her gloved palm against his cheek. "It would be better," he said, "if you were there."

For a second she almost looked ready to yank her hand back, but then her face changed and she smiled instead. "What, to help you study? Don't worry, I know."

In the snow, in the light of the neon street signs, in the dark and cold and kind of damp, Kim Yoon Hee was... she was... "You're the smartest person I know," he said, loosening his hold on her wrist, letting it fall from his fingers.

"I know," she said again, and for a second she looked almost worried. "Joon... listen, I -"

In hindsight, maybe she should have picked something other than the Star Wars Imperial March for Moon Jae Shin's text message notification on her phone, or at least should have thought to turn it down from max volume. "Shit," she hissed, scrambling to pull the phone out of her pocket without accidentally throwing it to the ground.  
  


* * *

**From: Moon Jae Shin  
** **Sent: 18:43, Mar 3**

Some punk kids smashed the front window of Vintage. Don't come in tomorrow, I'm still working on getting it fixed.

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 18:44, Mar 3**

And tell Seon Joon not to come in either.

* * *

**From: Kim Yoon Shik**  
**Sent: 18:46, Mar 3**

What makes you think he's with me? And what do you mean, some punk kids smashed the front window?

* * *

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 18:48, Mar 3**

Please. I know you two are together right now. And I mean exactly what it sounds like. Don't worry about it, I'm getting it taken care of and I'll let you know when we're opening back up again.

* * *

 

"What a jerk," Yoon Hee muttered, glaring at the screen of her phone. "I can't believe him. Where does he get off?"

"What does the boss want?"

"The shop is closed." Yoon Hee shook her head and stuck the phone back into her pocket, turning the volume all the way down. "He says some punk kids smashed the front window. Sounds awfully convenient if you ask me."

Seon Joon considered this for a moment. "What about that is particularly rude?"

"What?"

"You called him a jerk.”

"Oh." Yoon Hee colored. "He told me to tell you not to come in either. Said he knew we were together right now."

"Well." Seon Joon looked at her, then at their feet standing together on the sidewalk, then glanced at the pocket holding her cell phone. "I can't help but notice that we are together right now."

"I know!" Yoon Hee huffed out an irritable exhale and crammed her hands into her pockets, turning on one heel to march off down the street. "But it's the principle of the thing, damn it. Let's go get something to eat."

Seon Joon trailed after her. Part of him couldn't help but wonder if Moon Jae Shin knew something he didn't, but the rest of him was pretty sure that there was no possible way that that was the case.

 

To be fair, the phrase ‘working on it’ implied a certain level of actual activity that was significantly lacking in Moon Jae Shin's life at that precise moment. If by ‘working on it’ one were to mean something much closer to ‘lying on the floor and feeling sorry for himself’ then it was exactly the right phrase to use, but unfortunately for everyone involved it doesn't generally mean anything even close to that so it wasn't really that appropriate given the circumstances.

Moon Jae Shin lay on the floor and felt sorry for himself, because everyone needs a hobby.

He'd moved back into the attic, which had been easy enough since he'd never had enough time or energy or motivation to ever move out of it completely in the first place, and had spent the last two days chainsmoking, drinking more soju than comfortably fit into the plastic bags the shopkeeper attempted to pack them all into, and eating more cheap chinese food than he'd consumed in the past two years combined. The rest of his time was spent sleeping, or trying to. Turned out sleeping could be difficult when wracked with guilt and self-loathing, which was why when someone started banging on the front door of the bakery he was lying awake on the floor of the office, staring at the ceiling and wishing he was dead.

For a few seconds he thought about just ignoring it. The CLOSED sign was huge and obvious. Who would honestly expect someone to be there? The boarded up window should have been explanation enough on its own.

But something got him up. Something made him pull on a clean(ish) shirt, run a hand through his hair to take care of the worst of it, pull on his shoes. Something made him go down the stairs and open the door.

"We're closed," he started to say, and then shut up instead.

"Moon Young Jae," Detective Jung said. The man next to him was younger than he was, though not by much - five years, maybe a little more - but where Jung was wearing an everyday civilian jacket and unadorned trousers, his companion wore a black leather jacket and a police badge clipped to one belt loop.

Jae Shin's blood ran cold. "My name is Moon Jae Shin now."

Jung opened his mouth, then hesitated for a second. "Moon Jae Shin, then. We need your help."

"'We?'" Jae Shin eyeballed the two of them suspiciously, gaze lingering on the police badge. "Who exactly is 'we?' And what kind of help?"

 

Gu Yong Ha knelt on the floor of his studio apartment, one of the drawers of his wardrobe open in front of him, staring at its contents without really seeing them at all. It was stupid, but just like before he'd expected a call. Hoped for a call. Needed a call. Jae Shin had never asked him to stay. Had he ever even really wanted him around in the first place?

The floorboards creaked behind him. "Thinking about what you're going to pack?" Jean-Baptiste said from somewhere above him.

Yong Ha started, hands reaching out to touch the clothing in the drawer. "Something like that.”

"You can take it all," Jean-Baptiste said, lowering himself onto the floor next to Yong Ha. "There will be room enough for everything."

"All of it?" Yong Ha made a face and tugged a piece of clothing out of the drawer, holding it up and shaking his head. "What makes you think I'd want all of it? Look at this shirt. I must have been drunk when I bought this." He nudged his glasses up his nose and looked at it a little closer. "Actually I think I was drunk when I bought this."

"The school isn't opening for a while, you'll have time to find a new place and get everything moved. Are you worried?"

"Nah." Yong Ha balled up the shirt and tossed it over one shoulder onto his mattress. (What he hadn't said out loud was that it was actually Jae Shin's shirt, one that had somehow gotten mixed in with his things in the confusion of the bakery attic.) "What should I be worried about?"

Jean-Baptiste smiled. Shrugged. Leaned back, propping himself up on his arms. "You just seem restless. Is something going on?"

"I think I'm just bored," Yong Ha replied, getting up on his knees to dig through the drawer a little more intently. "I haven't had this many days off in a row since getting out of the military, before I found work. I'm used to doing something."

"What happened?"

Yong Ha slowed, fingers tangled in the sleeve of a button-down shirt. "What?"

"With your boss," Jean-Baptiste continued. He pursed his lips. "I could tell by his face that he doesn't like cake."

"It's a long story," Yong Ha said, not looking up at him. He pulled the shirt out of the rest of the way and flapped it up and down a few times to get the wrinkles out. "I don't really think this color suits me."

"Every color suits you. Are you going to tell me the story?"

"It isn't mine to tell. And you're a liar, I look terrible in black." Yong Ha grimaced. "Washes me out entirely. I look like death himself."

"But he doesn't like cake," Jean-Baptiste said. He leaned forward again. "So that means you're not there for the cake. Then what? What is it you're there for?"

Yong Ha looked up at him then, a spike of worry suddenly shooting through him like ice in his blood. He set the questionable shirt down on his lap, smoothing the fabric absent-mindedly with a hand, and inclined his head thoughtfully. "Does your boss have to like cake for you to work for cake? And anyway," he added, "you know about him. He's a friend. An old friend."

"What is it you're there for?" Jean-Baptiste looked down at Yong Ha's hands. "Are you in love with him?"

The long answer was yes - whole-heartedly, unwillingly, unbreakably for sixteen damn years. It had been sixteen years since Yong Ha had first fallen in love with Moon Jae Shin - on the pavement behind the school, bloodied and messed up with that tall awkward gangly teenager standing over him with two black eyes and bruised knuckles, silently holding out a hand to help him up - and he'd learned to ignore it but it was still always, always there, just under the surface. Jae Shin could fuck up and fuck him over, ignore him, screw around, disappear, get drunk, throw up in his bed, fall down the stairs, pass out on the street, and still after everything Yong Ha would still be in love with him. He'd tried not to be but it never lasted long and if anything it had only gotten worse, growing in his chest like something malignant.

The short answer was yes. Yes. God, yes.

"No," Yong Ha said out loud. "He's just a friend."

 

"Another body has been found," the policeman was saying. They were sitting at one of the tables in the bakery - Jae Shin on one side, Detective Jung to his right, the policeman across the table. "During the autopsy we examined the contents of the stomach, tried to determine the last meal. We found rhubarb. Strawberry. Bread, chervil, almond."

"Cake," Jae Shin said.

"It's not the ingredients," Detective Jung said, his hands on his knees. He was staring at the table. "It's the composition." He looked up now, into Jae Shin's face, as if willing him to react somehow. To stand up. To yell. To do something, anything. "Rhubarb is often used on its own, but with the strawberry mousse, the tart base, the almond creme... I know of only one shop."

Rhubarb fraise.

For some stupid reason it had been one of the last things Yong Ha had stocked up on before Jae Shin had driven him away again for the second fucking time. They'd had a ton of it. It had lasted long after the last piece of opera cake, the last profiterole, the last petit fours had left the case and gone home with a customer in a gold foil box. He couldn't even remember who he'd sold it to: there had been too many, it had been stretched out over too many hours, he hadn't been paying attention to anything outside of his own head.

"We did some tests," the policeman was saying now, turning his badge over and over in his hand - some kind of nervous tic. "It's a perfect match. After cross-referencing it against some previous results we've been able to determine that the killer has been here at least twice."

(How long?)

"The body was found three days ago," Jung said. "Time of death was at least a week prior to that. We have reason to believe another child has been taken."

(How long had he waited for this?)

The policeman leaned over the table toward him, the carefully composed look on his face cracking slightly. "Another child," he said. "We don't have any time. He's been missing for four days. He needs to come home."

(Everything. It had all been for this moment.)

Jung looked back down at the table. At his hands on his knees. "Like you did, Moon Jae Shin."

Ten months ago he'd decided to open a cake shop. A good one - one so good that that bastard's sweet tooth would beg him to pay a visit. It would be open long into the night, just for the sake of that one person who would still be awake. It would be small, so Jae Shin could see every inch of it, see everything that happened, see everyone that walked in the door. Regardless of age, gender, or occupation, anyone could casually come in to buy pastries. A place that even a now much older man could easily come visit.

Ten months ago he'd decided to open a cake shop. A good one - one so good that that bastard's sweet tooth would beg him to pay a visit.

All of it. Everything. Every stupid goddamn decision. Leasing this damn place. Hiring Gu Yong Ha. Keeping everything tamped down, never saying anything even after he'd - even after everything had changed. Everything boiled down to this, to this moment.

All of it was for this moment.

Detective Jung cleared his throat. Put his clenched fists on the table, knuckles white. "I wanted to apologize again," he said, "for what happened. If I hadn't talked to your brother about -"

"Is that even possible?" Jae Shin loosened his grip on his thighs. He'd been holding them so tight, digging his nails into his legs hard enough to draw blood, and he hadn't even realized it. "Is that even possible?"

"Pardon?"

"For anyone to take responsibility for every single outcome... it's not possible." Jae Shin grinned. Shook his head. Smoothed his palms over the fabric of his trousers, trying to hide the pinpricks of blood seeping through the threads. "It's all right. I'm more than happy to help. What do you need?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bit about rhubarb being used on its own is straight out of the Antique Bakery movie and let me tell you, it _hurt_ to write it into this. I bake! Rhubarb is almost never used on its own!! It’s almost always mixed with strawberry!!! What were they even talking about??? I DON’T KNOW but it works for the story so ehhhhh
> 
> This is the penultimate chapter of this downswing. One more, and that one is mostly catharsis. The next chapter is acting like a jerk and refusing to be edited properly so no promises on when it'll go up, but it should be no more than a week? I hope?


	7. Collision Course

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter: catharsis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My proofreader (aka That Guy I Married (in case you were ever curious whether or not this fic was being read by a serious man with a large beard, I am here now to inform you that it is - and he already knows about all of the smut you have in your future)) tells me that this chapter is pretty rough to read. There's domestic abuse (the violent kind) and a fist fight and the description of a murder. If you've seen Antique Bakery you knew that most of this was coming, but the bit with the murder is original to Vintage.
> 
> I feel a little odd about putting this in the opening comments, but... I don't know. I don't feel right not saying something. I care about everybody who reads this, and if reading this chapter isn't safe for you I want to make sure you can still enjoy the story if you want to continue with it. If you don't feel comfortable reading one or more of these situations let me know in the comments (or if you'd prefer to let me know privately you can send me a message through my tumblr, which is linked in my AO3 profile) and I'll put a synopsis in the closing notes! <3

The plan was this: the police would set up a stake-out, a constant revolving watch with three officers stationed upstairs in the attic office space every single moment the bakery was open for business. Hidden cameras would be installed. Three different panic buttons. Microphones in any number of strategically advantageous locations throughout the shop, both inside and outside, to catch any shred of information they could glean from conversation and ambient noise.

Besides the three officers in the office upstairs, there would be two cars outside on the street at all times, keeping watch in shifts to avoid suspicion. There would be at least four officers within a block of the bakery, more just outside of that, and Detective Jung at the head of it - orchestrating the entire operation as though he'd never left the force.

All Moon Jae Shin had to do was open the shop... and supply the cake.

Detective Jung and his subordinate had left and Moon Jae Shin stood in the middle of the bakery, facing the display case with his back to the front door. He looked at the espresso machine. He looked at the curving glass of the empty case, reflecting the light of the street lamps just beginning to flicker on outside in the street. He looked at the window looking into the kitchen, at the swinging door, at the door leading up to the attic, and knew what he had to do.

 

"Don't lie to me," Jean-Baptiste said. "Are you in love with him?"

"I'm not lying to you." Yong Ha's hands twisted in the fabric on his lap. "It's just a job. He's just a friend."

"But still you're not sure if you're going to come with me. If this is just a job why can't you just leave it?" Jean-Baptiste's eyes flickered. "Like you left me."

 

"God fucking damn it," Jae Shin hissed, slamming the Call button on his cell phone screen for the third time in a row. "God damn it Yong Ha, pick up your damn phone."

He was stuck in traffic, because of course he was stuck in traffic. He was stuck in traffic and the criminal who'd ruined his entire life had bought cake from his cake shop and killed again, he'd killed again three more damn times, and Gu Yong Ha wasn't picking up his damn phone and god damn it. God damn it. God damn it.

He hated himself for dragging Yong Ha back into it again but this was bigger than him, it was bigger than him. He had to do what he had to do, and Yong Ha wasn't picking up his damn phone.

 

Yong Ha opened his mouth. Closed it again. "That was different," he said, trying to keep his voice light. "Military service. Civic duty. You know?"

"And you almost died," Jean-Baptiste said. "You're ruined now. I'm the only one who's going to really love you, the way you are now. Was leaving me worth it?"

"Of course it wasn't worth it." But the words were a breath, a sigh, a tiny exhalation of almost-nothing. "But I couldn't just -"

"If this is just a job why can't you just leave?" Jean-Baptiste was standing up now. "Are you in love with him? Don't lie to me."

"It's not like that," Yong Ha said, but it wasn't good enough. It wasn’t good enough. Nothing was ever going to be good enough.

 

He'd only been to Yong Ha's apartment twice, maybe three times, and never once set foot inside, but it was easy enough - it was on the rooftop of a small two story building, accessible by a flight of stairs along the outside wall, and you could see Yong Ha's front door from the street. The parking was horrible (it was always fucking horrible - people without cars had no clue what it was like, trying to find a parking spot in Seoul) but after a few minutes he gave up looking and just left the car in the street, hazards on, dash lights bright, his cell phone number in the window in case anyone needed him to move.

He couldn't remember breathing, not one memorable breath in the last half hour, so maybe that was why he was out of breath climbing the stairs, running, taking them two at a time. His chest hurt. His head hurt. His throat hurt. The killer had bought cake, and Jae Shin had driven Yong Ha away again (again, again, again) at the worst possible time.

Yong Ha wasn't picking up his phone. He wasn't picking up. He wasn't picking up. Would he even be at home? Would he be out somewhere with that French bastard? Would he even still live here? Would he have already started moving out, moving down to Busan?

The fear in him almost froze him up, almost stopped him in his tracks just outside of Yong Ha's door. Would Yong Ha even be on the other side? Even if he were, would he even listen?

But when he closed his eyes he could be eight years old again, and the hands on his shoulders were his brother's.

 

Yong Ha had had worse.

Basic training in Nonsan had been an obstacle course of violence and secrets and learning not to say the first rude thing that came to mind, and Yong Ha had had a lot worse. In Afghanistan he'd gotten in a couple of fights with people a little bigger and twice as tricky, and Yong Ha had had worse. On that February morning at the outer gate of the airfield base when he'd been at the wrong place at the wrong time and ended up with a shoulder full of shrapnel and a lifetime of physical therapy - Yong Ha had had worse. Yong Ha had had much, much worse.

But violence is one thing. Violence at the hands of a stranger, at the hands of an enemy, at the cold dead hands of a homemade bomb - it lived in its own special world, something you could close off sometimes, something you could ignore, something that you didn't have to carry around with you in your bones all the time.

"I'm offering you everything," Jean-Baptiste was saying. One hand was clenched tight around Yong Ha's left wrist, the other pressed firmly against his left shoulder, pinning him against the wall. "Can't you reconsider?"

He wasn't thinking straight, he couldn't think straight. His French was gone. His glasses were gone, on the floor somewhere, probably broken by now. (Somewhere in the back of his head Yong Ha couldn't stop thinking about where his glasses might have gone. Had they fallen off when Jean-Baptiste had grabbed him and pulled him up by the collar? Had they fallen off when Jean-Baptiste had knocked him into the wall? God, if he had to get new glasses wouldn't that just be the icing on this shit cake.)

Jean-Baptiste had his left wrist in one hand and was twisting now. Yong Ha stopped thinking about his glasses. He stopped thinking about anything. "Please -"

"Is it him?" Jean-Baptiste leaned in close (calm and quiet and thorough) and tightened his fingers on Yong Ha's shoulder, digging into the joint. "Your boss. Your... friend. He's a friend, right? That's what you called him? Just a friend?"

Logically, Yong Ha knew that he wasn't bleeding. Logically, Yong Ha knew that he would be okay eventually. Logically Yong Ha knew a lot of things, but Jean-Baptiste was digging his fingers hard into his left shoulder and hell if he wasn't right back in Afghanistan again, lying on his back in the dust with his skin laid open like a frog in a high school biology classroom and fuck, fuck, fuck, he couldn't stop himself from stretching and crying and clawing at Jean-Baptiste's arm.

"Are you in love with him?" The words were quiet but still somehow the only sound he could hear. "What is it about this fucking job that you can't leave it the way you left me?"

 

When Jae Shin gripped the door knob it turned in his hand, (unlocked for some reason), so he opened the door.

He'd never been very good at thinking first, at considering the best course of action before just jumping in. It was what Yong Ha had always been good at - the hand on his arm holding him back, the backup plan in case he shot off anyway, the first aid kit and a scolding ready and waiting for when he went too far (and he always, always went too far).

Maybe it was why he'd always seemed to get into the most trouble when it had been Yong Ha on the line? Like sixteen years ago (that kid on the pavement, blood at the corner of his mouth, stupid uniform jacket ripped at the shoulder and six bigger kids all on him at the same time) when he'd sat outside the principal's office with two black eyes and bruised knuckles, rationalizing to himself that it's what his brother would have done.

His brother. His brother would have done something. His brother would have put his life on the line for what he knew was right, for what no one else would risk everything for, for the people who couldn't protect themselves. At 15 years old his brother had been a better man than anyone else in the world, a better man than Jae Shin could ever hope to be.

But it wasn't Young Shin who opened the door. It wasn't Young Shin who saw Gu Yong Ha (that damn kid) twisted and broken under Jean-Baptiste's hand. It wasn't Young Shin who filled up with fire and heat and guilt like a pot boiling over on the stove.

Young Shin was dead. Young Shin was dead, and Jae Shin was alive, and when he hit Jean-Baptiste in the mouth it was with every single ounce of rage and hate and fury that he'd kept folded away in the pit of his stomach for the past twenty goddamn years.

"So," Jean-Baptiste said, touching his mouth and looking at the blood on his fingertips. "That's the way it is? He belongs to you."

"How many times do you have to hear it?" Jae Shin said. "He's Gu Yong Ha. He doesn't belong to anyone."

"Ah." Jean-Baptiste narrowed his eyes. "Or is it that you belong to him?"

Jae Shin didn't answer. He just clenched his fist, drew his arm back, and hit him again.

It took more than one punch, but only just: the first knocked Jean-Baptiste back and bloodied his lip, the second had him on the floor. A kick to the ribs brought him to his hands and knees and the red was starting to creep in at the corners of Jae Shin's vision, his heartbeat was whispering in his ears, his blood was humming and buzzing with all the heat and anger and adrenalin he always had just under the surface so he reached down. Fisted his hand in Jean-Baptiste's collar. Hauled him up bodily (those long, well-turned legs loose and unsteady), and -

"Don't," came Yong Ha's voice from behind him.

\- and the word was a hand on his arm, holding him down, holding him back.

"I'm going to kill him, Yong Ha," Jae Shin said calmly. The knuckles of Jean-Baptiste's right hand were marked dark red; Jae Shin knew that it wasn't his blood - Jean-Baptiste had only managed to land a single, weak-wristed punch - and it wasn't Jean-Baptiste's blood, either. It couldn't be. The red in his vision wasn't creeping in so much as it was a flood now, and Jae Shin couldn't stop looking at the knuckles of Jean-Baptiste's hand, at the blood, at Yong Ha's blood, very very literally on Jean-Baptiste's hands. "Je vais vous tuer," he said, looking Jean-Baptiste in the eye and tightening his grip on his collar.

For the first time, Jean-Baptiste started to look a little worried.

"Don't," Yong Ha said again, and Jae Shin didn't have to turn around to see the look on his face. "What am I gonna do if you go to prison for murder, Shin?"

(What was...?) Jae Shin stared at Jean-Baptiste's collar in his hand, at his own white-knuckled grip. It seemed such a long way off, like he was watching a movie. (What was Yong Ha going to do?) Jean-Baptiste deserved everything he had coming to him, every punch, every kick, every broken bone. He deserved all that and more. (What was Yong Ha going to do? What did that even mean?) But maybe not right now. Maybe not right now. Jae Shin's grip on Jean-Baptiste's collar loosened and he let him drop to the floor.

"Get the fuck out," he said. "If I ever see your face again I'll kill you."

 

The door slammed shut.

"Blond asshole," Jae Shin muttered under his breath. "I thought he would have put up a better fight."

Yong Ha just stared at the floor, trying to breathe. Nothing was making sense. He was trying to make it make sense but nothing was making any sense. "Why are you here?" he said finally, between gulps of air. He looked up - Jae Shin was standing in the middle of the apartment, muscles tight, hands in fists, like he was waiting for something. "Hey. Shin. Why are you here?"

Jae Shin didn't look at him for a second, and then when he did it was with a strangely distant expression, like he couldn't quite figure out where he was. He turned toward Yong Ha, fists still clenched tight, and fell forward a step.

"What?" Yong Ha managed, leaning back against the wall, hand to his shoulder, blood like salt and metal in his mouth. All his old wounds jostled for supremacy against his new ones and his head rang with the clash of it, but he grinned anyway. He felt stupid. He felt old. He felt brand new. After that, could anything hurt him again? (After that, could anything feel good ever again?) "Are you going to hit me too?"

Jae Shin stared at him, lips parted. The knuckles of his right hand were bloody, a bruise was starting to bloom on his cheekbone. He took a step forward, the movement hesitant and uncertain, then took a second. A third, a fourth, until he was so close that Yong Ha could almost feel the heat and adrenalin pour off his skin in waves. He brought up a hand and Yong Ha flinched despite himself, his gut tightening, braced for impact.

No impact.

Jae Shin put his hand under Yong Ha's chin and gently lifted it upward, angling his face into the light. Touched the bruise on his jaw. Ran a thumb over his lower lip, so light that he could barely feel the pressure. Pulled his hand away and looked at Yong Ha's blood on his fingertips.

"Jae Shin," Yong Ha said again, throat tight, voice hoarse. "You awake?"

Jae Shin looked up, away from the blood on his fingers, up into Yong Ha's face. "He hit you."

Yong Ha pushed off from the wall, holding his breath as the tendons in his shoulder screamed at him for moving, and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. "A lot of people have hit me. It's not a very exclusive club. Do you see my glasses anywhere?"

A deep breath and it was like Jae Shin was awake again, blinking in the light. He looked down. "Your glasses?"

"My glasses," Yong Ha repeated, waving a hand at his face. "I wear them over my eyes so that I can see things. They fell off somewhere." He closed his eyes, head pounding, shoulder cramping. God, had Jae Shin always been this stupid? Had he always been like this? "Just... forget it." Yong Ha shook his head. "Don't worry about it."

"They're right here," Jae Shin said.

Yong Ha opened his eyes. Looked up. Jae Shin had somehow moved across the room without making a sound and now stood next to his bed, holding his glasses carefully in one outstretched hand. "They were on the bed," Jae Shin said, glancing downward. "On my shirt. Why do you have my shirt?"

"It just... ended up that way." Without his glasses Yong Ha couldn't even see the pattern on his quilt but somehow he knew exactly where Jae Shin's shirt lay on the bed - so he didn't look at it and turned toward the kitchen instead. Somewhere in the kitchen there was a bottle of wine, and somewhere in that bottle of wine was what was probably his only chance at going to sleep and forgetting today had ever happened. "Bring them over here, will you? Ah, Christ." Trying to open the fridge door had been a mistake. He screwed his eyes shut (fireworks bursting behind his eyelids) and leaned his forehead against the cool plastic of the freezer door. "Fuck."

"Go sit down," came Jae Shin's voice behind him, and then a hand was on his elbow, gently pulling him away from the fridge, gently steering him out of the kitchen. "I put your glasses on the counter. What are you looking for?"

"Wine." Any other time Yong Ha probably would have shaken him off, done whatever he wanted, but right now he was tired. "There's wine."

Without a word, Jae Shin pulled open the fridge door and peered inside. Pulled out a bottle of white wine and glared at the label. "You always did have expensive tastes."

Yong Ha leaned against the counter, right hand still held tight against his shoulder. "Why are you here?"

Why was he here? Jae Shin looked at the wine in his hand. Why was he here? "He bought cake, Yong Ha," he said finally.

"What?"

"The kidnapper." He set the bottle down on the counter and started opening drawers semi-randomly, searching through their contents for a bottle opener. He only had to open two drawers before he found the corkscrew - Yong Ha always had liked to keep things organized - and he had the cork out in a few seconds. "He bought cake."

"Jesus," Yong Ha said, and slumped a little against the counter. "He bought cake? He bought my cake?"

Jae Shin opened a cupboard and pulled out two wine glasses, setting them down carefully. His adrenalin high was only barely starting to fade and he felt like it was taking every ounce of effort he had not to crush the delicate stems between his fingers. "Your cake." He almost looked up - but stopped at the last second, looking at the bottle of wine again. Condensation was starting to bead up on the glass. "They found another body. The autopsy - it was the rhubarb fraise. Your rhubarb fraise."

He didn't know what he expected. Half an hour ago, trying to call Yong Ha from the car, he’d had a pretty good idea of what he expected: an argument maybe, a really rough conversation about all the ways he'd failed Yong Ha over the years, but maybe - just maybe, with enough luck and the right amount of persuasion - Yong Ha would agree. Yong Ha would agree to come back to the shop, just for a little while, just for enough time to catch the bastard.

"You remember how I told you that my brother had been murdered?" Jae Shin said, the words coming out of him without asking him for permission first. "If it had just been me I could deal with it, but the murder... that was him. He did it. He murdered my brother."

"What?"

"Young Shin was fifteen," Jae Shin said. "He figured it out. The kidnapper had a pattern, and he was the first one to figure it out but nobody would listen to him. He was just a kid. So... so he went by himself. He died. I didn't." He picked up the bottle of wine and poured two glasses. "It should have been me."

At eight years old Jae Shin had sat on the floor of his older brother's room. Young Shin had kept a box under his bed filled with files, newspaper clippings, a notebook stuffed full of fevered theories and drawings and charts and maps. At eight years old Jae Shin had sat on the floor of his older brother's room, the contents of that box spread out around him, and traced back over what had happened.

The kidnapper kept his victims for a particular number of weeks, multiples of four. It wasn't a month, it was four weeks, and Young Shin had figured it out. Jae Shin had been the third kid to go missing; the first had died exactly four weeks after being abducted, the second had died eight weeks after, and when Jae Shin's body hadn't been found within nine weeks Young Shin had known that he was onto something.

The detective in charge of the case (Detective Jung, the man his mother had slapped hard across the face) had told Young Shin that both of the previously abducted children's bodies had been found in or near playgrounds, both within four kilometers of one another, both off a main road, both filled with trees and brush - he'd written it in the notebook in big, black letters, underlined four times. At the top of the box had been a map of Seoul, lines drawn all over it. The last four pages of the notebook had detailed Young Shin's visits to every playground within four kilometers of the second body's discovery, scratching out the names of every park and play structure that didn't meet the requirements.

At night, on the day exactly twelve weeks following his younger brother's abduction, Young Shin snuck out from under his mother's nose. Caught a bus, got off at the right stop, and waited for the man he knew would be coming.

The only thing Jae Shin could remember from that night, from the entire twelve weeks was his brother's face, pale and terrified in the dark of the night. Telling him to run. Telling him to live. Begging him, begging him to forget everything that had happened to him. Jae Shin had run, and lived, and forgotten everything like a goddamn coward.

Young Shin had died, throat cut open and his body left to bleed out on the pavement.

“It should have been me,” Jae Shin said. “I should have been the one to die.”

He looked up and Yong Ha was just staring at him, lips slightly parted, fingers loose around the glass. “Don’t -” He closed his eyes. Shook his head. “Don’t be stupid. You should have been the one to die? Don’t be so fucking _stupid_ , Moon Jae Shin. You’re better than that. Both of us know you’re better than that. Is that what you were talking about last week, in the car? God -”

"Yong Ha," Jae Shin said, closing his eyes, hand tightening on the neck of the wine bottle, "I know I fucked up but please... god, just help me. Just this once. I'll never - I promise that I'll never ask you for anything again."

"Didn’t I just tell you not to be stupid?"

"What?"

Yong Ha swirled the wine in his glass and then drank it in one giant gulp. Grinned - that odd, cold smile that showed up sometimes when nothing was really that funny - and shook his head. "Don't be stupid. Of course I'm going to help." He glanced up at Jae Shin, his eyes bleary, unfocused without his glasses. "We're... who cares about anything that happened before. You're my best friend. Hell, you’re probably the best person I know. You deserve to be alive. Of course I'm gonna help."

He was doing that thing again, where he was suddenly bigger on the inside than he was on the outside - infinitely complex, like a puzzle without a key - and Jae Shin could see the look on his face in the back of his head, the look on his face when Jean-Baptiste had his bad shoulder pinned back and twisted. It had been pain, of course, and betrayal and fear and -

"I really will kill him," Jae Shin said. "Jean-Baptiste. If I see him again."

"Yeah." Yong Ha set his empty glass down on the counter. Took a deep breath, fast and quick like he was about to speak. Held it for a second. "I didn't know how to break the news to him. He can't control his temper sometimes."

Jae Shin picked up the bottle of wine and poured Yong Ha another glass. "What news?"

"That I wasn't going with him," Yong Ha replied. "God, I -" He grimaced, ran a hand over his face. "I know how this all looks, but Jean-Baptiste... he's the only person who loves me like that. We just -"

"Don't," Jae Shin interrupted, lurching forward. "Don't. He's not... that fucking bastard isn't the only person who cares about you. Don't ever believe that there's only one person who cares about you. Don't ever. Don't ever."

"I deserved everything I got." Yong Ha looked down into the depths of his wine glass. At the bubbles streaming up the sides of the bowl. "I'm a bastard who makes cake that kills people."

"Don't you dare." Jae Shin couldn't stop himself from reaching out, touching Yong Ha's sleeve with the tips of his fingers, brushing his shoulder. Screw anything about _love_ ; this was Yong Ha. Regardless of whether or not Jae Shin was in love with him- "Don't you dare think that you deserved it. Don't you dare think that Jean-Baptiste had the right to hit you. Don't you dare think that this is in any way your fault."

"It kind of is," Yong Ha said, his voice quiet.

"No," Jae Shin said, fingers tightening over Yong Ha's shoulder. "No," Jae Shin said, pulling Yong Ha toward him, away from the counter. "No," Jae Shin said, wrapping both arms around Yong Ha and holding onto him as delicately as he could, taking care of his left shoulder. "Don't you dare."

"Jesus." Yong Ha squeezed his eyes shut. "Don't get all dramatic on me, Shin. I mean I know it's your default setting and all, but - god," he mumbled, interrupting himself, burying his face in Jae Shin’s shoulder. His right arm came up and around Jae Shin's ribs and he pressed his hand against the place between Jae Shin's shoulder blades, his palm cool and his fingers curled. "I really... I really don't want to sleep here tonight."

"Let's go home," Jae Shin said.


	8. Match Made In Heaven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter: Gu Yong Ha doesn't like antiseptic even a little bit; Moon Jae Shin doesn't know very much about this kind of thing; Kim Yoon Hee has the best day of her life so far.

"Ah! Jesus, what are you -"

"Don't be a baby," Jae Shin bit out, holding the cotton bud doused in antiseptic awkwardly between thumb and forefinger. "Do you want that to get infected?"

"It's not going to get infected," Yong Ha mumbled petulantly, holding one cupped hand protectively over his split eyebrow to keep Jae Shin from treating it. "I got punched in the face, not scratched by a cat."

"Jean-Baptiste is worse than a cat. I like cats. Move your hand before the antiseptic dries out."

"At least my mom always gave me candy when she had to do this."

Jae Shin let a slow, aggravated breath (the exhale of a man trying like hell not to lose his patience) and closed his eyes for a second. "I'm not your mom. Move your hand or I'll move it for you."

Yong Ha pulled a defiant expression and leaned back slightly. "I'd like to see you try."

It was a second - less than a second - before Jae Shin's hand was wrapped around his wrist, tugging it gently but firmly downward. "Nooo," Yong Ha whined, trying to pull his head back before the antiseptic could make contact again.

Half an hour ago, when the back door had opened and they had stepped inside as though nothing had changed, the bakery had been dark and cold and empty. Yong Ha had known without even looking that the walk-in freezer was empty, that they'd sold everything and had to close. The look on Jae Shin's face back at his apartment had told him that much.

The office was littered with old take-out containers, empty soju bottles, dirty laundry. The bed (well, the mattress on the floor - did that count as a bed?) wasn't ‘made’ so much as it had been ‘not technically on fire’ but still. Still. Jae Shin had called it home - god knew why - and Yong Ha hadn't even had to ask what he meant.

And now they were sitting at the edge of the mattress and Jae Shin had dug a first aid kit out of one of the supply closets and fuuuck, Yong Ha had almost, almost managed to forget just how much the antiseptic could sting.

"Hold still, god damn it, or I'll end up sticking this in your eye on accident."

Yong Ha froze, trying not to imagine the feeling of antiseptic in his eye and failing spectacularly. "Fine. Just... just get it over with."

"The first time I ever laid eyes on you a bunch of kids were beating the shit out of you and you didn't even cry," Jae Shin growled, sticking his tongue out of the corner of his mouth in concentration as he dabbed solution onto the cut. (Yong Ha tried not to flinch but didn't do a very good job.) "You have a scar on your shoulder bigger than my hand. And you act like this over a little antiseptic?"

"You only say that because - ow, shit - because you weren't there when I got the scar," Yong Ha spat back, screwing one eye shut. "I can be a wimp in all kinds of different situations. There's no limit to my wimpiness."

Jae Shin paused for a fraction of a second, cotton bud held aloft, before glancing down at the first aid kit opened up on the mattress between them. He put the cotton bud down on a paper towel and picked up a bandaid. "You don't have to tell me what happened," he said finally, focusing on peeling off the backing to expose the adhesive side.

Ah, shit.

There was a part of Yong Ha that was still pissed off, that was still spiteful and bitter over the fifteen years that Jae Shin had never said a damn thing about what had happened to him. That part of him didn't want to tell Jae Shin anything, wanted Jae Shin to sit and stew and maybe, for once, think about what he'd done. But -

"It was a bombing. Like your mom said."

Jae Shin froze. Looked up, the expression on his face unreadable. "What?"

Sure, part of Yong Ha was still pissed off, but the rest of him wanted to put words to it for the first time. He'd never talked about it before. Even his mother only had the official version, the version that had come in a letter from his commanding officer. Mostly he tried not to think about it, tried not to remember it well enough to be able to write it down. Talking about it was like living it, was like being there again, it was like admitting it had happened at all. Talking about it made it real. If he didn't talk about it then maybe it hadn't happened.

"A bombing," Yong Ha repeated, gesturing at his left shoulder. "Suicide bombing. In Bagram, when I was posted at the air force base. I got off easy. Twenty-three people died." He swallowed. "That’s pretty much it. There’s not much more to it. I can still use my arm even though the doctors weren't sure I'd be able to. My ears ring sometimes. When an ambulance goes by I think I’m back there for a second. I can’t go to fireworks shows anymore without being an embarrassment. I miss my friends who are dead." He hesitated for a second. “Mostly I just try to pretend it didn’t happen.”

The bandaid had gotten stuck to Jae Shin's thumb and Yong Ha couldn't help but focus on that instead of the look on Jae Shin's face - anything but focus on the look on Jae Shin's face. "Why are you telling me this now?"

"I know everything about what happened to you," Yong Ha said. Shrugged with one shoulder. Grinned, knowing full well how cheap and thin it was but just for a second not caring at all. "I don't feel right keeping it. It happened to me. Somebody tried to kill me and it didn’t work."

When he looked up Jae Shin was staring at him, eyes wide, lips parted as though he was almost about to say something - and then he laughed, a quiet breath that was more like a cough than anything, and smiled that lopsided smile that got to Yong Ha every damn time. Every damn time. "I guess we're both fucked up."

Yeah, sure, but only one of them was stupid enough to be in love with the other, even after everything, even after all these years. Did that ache more than his shoulder? Did that sting more than the antiseptic? Yong Ha wasn't sure anymore. When he’d been laid out flat in his back in the dust (it had been two years, two whole years - the anniversary had come and gone last month and he’d been raw all day like an exposed nerve) with his skin laid open like a frog in a high school biology classroom all he could think about other than the pain and the fear was how he couldn’t even call Jae Shin. He couldn’t even call Jae Shin to come out and pick him up and stand between him and the world like he used to.

But he could have, couldn’t he? He didn’t know it then, but he could have. Jae Shin didn’t care about who Yong Ha loved, not really. Yong Ha could have called, and just looking at Jae Shin’s face told him that Jae Shin would have come out (even all the way to Afghanistan, of all places) and picked him up out of the dust and then stand between him and the rest of the world.

Stand between him and the rest of the world, sure, between him and Jean-Baptiste. But probably not love him back.

"Yeah," Yong Ha said. "We have so much in common, Shin. Match made in heaven."

Maybe he just imagined it, but Jae Shin's grin almost looked like it faltered for a second. "Shut up," he said, peeling the bandaid off of where it had adhered itself to his skin and reaching up to Yong Ha's face. "Hold still."  
  


When Jae Shin woke up the sun was beaming in through the window and the sharp smell of antiseptic hung in the air and he was cold, colder than he expected to be. He turned his head on his pillow and Yong Ha was… Yong Ha was still there. He didn’t know whether or not he should be surprised. His head was still running slow, not quite awake yet. Yong Ha was still there - and where would he have gone, anyway? - but he seemed wrong somehow. Tight. Closed off.

Yong Ha normally slept curled up on his side facing Jae Shin’s side of the bed, left shoulder up, left hand on the pillow by his face, but now he lay face down. Face turned away from Jae Shin, toward the window. His left arm lay loose at his side (had he seen that before?) and his breath wasn’t the slow, easy rhythm Jae Shin was used to - his own personal white noise machine in a convenient Best Friend / Unrequited Love combo format.

It was probably that his arm hurt. Jae Shin’s knuckles hurt where his fist had connected with Jean-Baptiste’s face so Yong Ha was probably in even more pain, all things considered. Jae Shin felt stupid, but (but fuck feeling stupid) reached out anyway. Lay his hand on the small of Yong Ha’s back. Felt the muscles tighten, felt his spine contract slightly to get away from him. “Hey. Yong Ha. Are you awake?”

Nothing for a second. Then: “No.”

Jae Shin propped himself up on one elbow, not moving his hand from Yong Ha’s back. “You’re such a liar. Does your shoulder hurt?”

“No.”

Yong Ha’s hair was messed up, tangled, covering his face. Jae Shin leaned over and tried to look at him. “Are you okay?”

An inhale, shaky and strange under Jae Shin’s hand, and Yong Ha turned his face in toward Jae Shin. Leaned into him. “Stop asking questions. Go back to sleep.” The shift had been quick enough, quiet enough that Jae Shin hadn’t been able to see the look on Yong Ha’s face before he buried it all over again into Jae Shin’s pillow this time, but the pillowcase on Yong Ha’s side of the bed was damp and his face was wet and wait, what?

“Hey,” Jae Shin said again, pushing himself up into an upright position. “Hey. I’m serious. Are you okay? Do you need to go to the hospital? Yong Ha, god damn it, just -”

But Yong Ha’s hand was curling around his wrist. “I really loved him,” Yong Ha said into the pillow.

Fuck.

Jae Shin pressed a hand to his forehead. Clenched his teeth. What the fuck did you say to something like that? “He didn’t deserve you,” he said, his voice quiet. “Your cake is better than his. You can only date people who can bake as well as you can.”

Yong Ha glared up at him with one eye. “How do you know my cake is better than his? You don’t know anything about cake. You don’t even _like_ cake.”

“I know you have to have cool hands.” Jae Shin lowered himself back down onto the mattress. “I know the difference between a macaron and a macaroon.” He lay his head down on his pillow next to Yong Ha’s face, and took a deep breath. “That’s… that’s actually pretty much all I know. But I bet your cake is still better. You make your own whipped cream.”

“Every patissiere worth their salt -”

“Worth their _sugar_ ,” Jae Shin said. He was starting to feel like he’d gone crazy.

“- _worth their salt_ makes their own whipped cream,” Yong Ha said, the look on his face doubtful and sardonic for a second before it faded and he was pressing his face into the pillow again. “I’m sorry.”

“What the hell do you have to be sorry for? Jesus, Yong Ha, you’re not -”

“Sorry for putting this on you.” Yong Ha buried his face in the hollow between Jae Shin’s neck and shoulder. Laid one hand on Jae Shin’s chest, fingers curled. (His face was wet, it was _still wet_ , and Jae Shin wanted to fucking murder Jean-Baptiste.) “Sorry for everything.”

“Look,” Jae Shin said, wrapping one arm over Yong Ha’s shoulders. “Look, I don’t know anything about this kind of thing, you know that. But…” He hesitated for a second. “But I’m sorry he hurt you. I’m sorry it’s over. You’re worth more than this. You deserve better than him. He’s not the only person who… he’s not the only person who can love you. I promise.”

“Careful,” Yong Ha sighed. “If you flatter me too much you’ll never hear the end of it.”

Jae Shin groaned and ran a hand over his face. “Tell me about it. I’m never going to live this down, am I? You’ll be bringing this up when I’m on my deathbed.”

“Nah, it’ll be in my best man speech at your wedding.” Yong Ha rolled over onto his back. “What good is a best friend if he doesn’t make your wife at least a little bit jealous?”

Jae Shin turned his head on his pillow to look at Yong Ha. He was lying on his back on the other side of the mattress, face still just a little bit pink and shining but at least now he was grinning a little bit. His eyes were closed. His face was angled upward like an angel in some renaissance painting. He was hurt and torn up and raw but grinning anyway.

“Right,” Jae Shin said. “My wife.”  
  


* * *

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 09:12, Mar 11**

Come in to work in two days. Three pm. Tell the cucumber.

* * *

**From: Kim Yoon Shik**  
**Sent: 09:14, Mar 11**

Did you find a replacement for Gu Yong Ha?

* * *

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 09:21, Mar 11**

No. See you in two days.

* * *

**From: Kim Yoon Shik**  
**Sent: 09:22, Mar 11**

Then how are we opening back up, if there's no pastry chef?

**From: Kim Yoon Shik**  
**Sent: 09:23, Mar 11**

Wait. WAIT. IS GU YONG HA COMING BACK

* * *

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 09:28, Mar 11**

Yeah, Yong Ha's coming back to the bakery. Are you coming in or not?

* * *

 

Kim Yoon Hee stood on her bed, phone held over her head with both hands like a re-enactment of the Lion King, and screamed something joyous and unintelligible.

Her door slammed open and her younger brother - short of breath, hair tousled - stared up at her. "What's wrong?! Are you okay?"

"Okay?!" Yoon Hee bounced up and down on the mattress, turning in a tight circle and shaking the phone. "Okay?!"

"I..." Yoon Shik watched her bounce for a second and then swallowed, looking a little sick to his stomach. "I don't know what that means."

She fell into a sitting position on the mattress and hugged the phone to her chest, cheeks flushed pink, eyes sparkling. "My OTP," she hissed, and fell backward.

"No," Yoon Shik said, widening his eyes and bringing a hand to his mouth. "Your boss? And the pastry chef? God, _finally_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You get one guess who had a really productive weekend.


	9. The One Where Moon Jae Shin Goes to a Gay Bar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter: Kim Yoon Shik puts his hands where they shouldn't be; Lee Seon Joon asks some inconvenient questions; Gu Yong Ha has three favorite types of salt; Moon Jae Shin puts himself out there; a little advice, kid.

"All right," Jae Shin said, glancing up at the huge clock on the wall of the kitchen. He was leaning forward, palms down on the butcher block counter. "Do you have any questions?" Yoon Shik raised a hand. "Yes?"

"So when you say police surveillance," Yoon Shik said slowly, turning his hand so that his palm faced upward in a gesture of confusion manifest, "are we talking undercover cops? Microphones? Detectives stationed in cars on the street?"

"Yes," Jae Shin said. Twisted his mouth. "To all of that."

"And cameras," Seon Joon said. He crossed his arms over his chest but the look on his face stayed blank and unreadable, which meant he was thinking, which meant that any minute now Jae Shin was probably going to want to hit him. "Will we be given any information as to where the cameras will be located?"

"Ah," Jae Shin said. He paused. Looked down at the counter, at the grain of the wood, at the marks and scars left from months of heavy use - then at the clock again. "No," he said eventually, wishing that Yong Ha was next to him to run interference. "I don't think so." Yoon Shik's hand shot up into the air again. "What?"

"Two days ago you said Gu Yong Ha was coming back to the bakery," Yoon Shik said, thin fingers curling anxiously over the palm of his outstretched hand. "Where is he?"

Jae Shin sighed, rubbed a hand over his face, and looked at the clock for the third time in as many minutes. "Honestly? Your guess is as good as mine. All I know is that he said he'd be here at three." Okay, so that wasn't strictly true. His exact words had been something a lot closer to: "Tomorrow? Really? You're the worst, Shin." But for Gu Yong Ha that was practically a promise.

"Do you know why he decided to stay?" Seon Joon said.

As if on cue, the back door swung open. "Because I missed you, Lee Seon Joon," Gu Yong Ha said, his grin like a cat. He stepped over the threshold and slammed the door shut behind him with his heel. Adjusted his shoulder bag with his right hand. "Sorry I'm late. Did I miss anything good, or was Shin just monologuing this whole time?"

"Hey," Jae Shin barked, standing upright to argue, but -

"Gu Yong Ha!" Yoon Shik shoved past Seon Joon and went straight for Yong Ha. "You're back! Thank god! Don't leave me alone with these two ever again."

"It couldn't have been -" Yoon Shik reached out and grabbed him by both shoulders "- _Jesus fucking Christ damn it to hell fuck_  -” Jae Shin bolted forward and grabbed Yoon Shik by his upper arms, pulling him back “- I am actually still really sore," Yong Ha finished smoothly, leaning weakly against the door.

"What happened to you?!" Yoon Shik's hands were splayed wide, his eyes huge. The bruise on Yong Ha's jaw had faded a little, the cut on his eyebrow was still healing. "Who the hell did this?"

Yong Ha waved a hand, face pale. "Don't worry about it, I'm fine now."

"Was it Jean-Baptiste?" Yoon Shik went suddenly, alarmingly pink. He jerked both arms out of Jae Shin’s grasp, hands curling into fists. "That bastard! I'll kill him!"

"Shin has that covered," Yong Ha said.

"Okay, listen," Jae Shin cut in, feeling the skin of his neck go hot under the collar, "homicidal intent aside, the police will be installing the surveillance equipment upstairs starting tomorrow. Between that and getting the front window fixed -"

"Yeah, how come the window needs to be fixed, anyway?" Yoon Shik blinked innocently at him. "You said something about some punk kids? I had no idea this neighborhood was so dangerous."

"- and getting the window fixed," Jae Shin said again, not looking at Yoon Shik at all, "will probably take a few days."

Yong Ha set his shoulder bag down on the counter with his right hand, the movement stiff and awkward. "Don't get ahead of yourself," he said. "We're completely out of pretty much everything. We have to get some basics in before I can even think about starting work again. If you give me an hour, I'll give you a list."

After one hour Seon Joon had to go home to study for a test the next day. After two hours Yoon Shik had to leave to pick up his younger brother from his doctor appointment. After two and a half hours Moon Jae Shin bent over the butcher block island in the middle of the kitchen, wrapped his arms over the back of his head, and groaned a groan so full of exhaustion and dismay that the tile floor nearly cracked under its emotional weight.

"Five more minutes," Yong Ha said, elbows deep in one of the cupboards on the other side of the island. He blew a strand of hair out of his face and dug through the jars and cans with single-minded purpose. "Five more minutes."

"That's what you said half an hour ago," Jae Shin moaned into the wood counter somewhere above him. "You said you needed basics."

One hand slapped palm down on the counter and Yong Ha levered himself up awkwardly, ballpoint pen clenched between his teeth, notepad held tight between his left elbow and his side, his left hand full of two different bulk-sized spice containers that had both seen better, more bountiful days. "Cinnamon," he sputtered around the pen, then thought better of it and spat it out onto the counter, "cinnamon is a basic. So is sugar, and cake flour, and whole grain flour. And nutmeg. And all three of my favorite kinds of salt."

"Not only is there more than one type of salt," Jae Shin said, propping himself up to peer doubtfully up at Yong Ha, "but you have a favorite kind?"

"Three favorite kinds," Yong Ha corrected, bending over the counter to make a cramped note in the margins of his over-populated notepad. "Don't pretend to understand pastry. It doesn't suit you."

Jae Shin glanced over his shoulder at the clock. "Are you done?"

"Not really."

"Can you be done?" And then Jae Shin was leaning over the counter, reaching for the notepad - grasping for purchase on the paper and dragging it toward him over the wood, twisting his head around to read it. "This list is ridiculous."

Yong Ha sighed and tried to take it back, but Jae Shin batted his hand away. "Shin -"

"I'm starving," Jae Shin said. He picked up the notepad and glared at it. "I think you have 'eggs' on here twice. Do you seriously need all of this just to open up again?"

"I'll don't tell you how to do your job," Yong Ha said.

"Yes," Jae Shin said pointedly, glancing up at him, "you do. What do you want for dinner?"  
  
  


"Okay," Jae Shin said, gesturing with his chopsticks, "but what I don't get about Heirs is what she even sees in him in the first place. He's a total dick."

"But he's tortured," Yong Ha argued, reaching over and grabbing a piece of kimchi out of the dish with thumb and forefinger. "It's not his fault, his older brother hates him and his mom's a complete -"

Jae Shin shot him a dirty look. "Yong Ha. Don't be disgusting."

"What?" Yong Ha sucked the pepper sauce from his fingers. "I mean don't get me wrong, he's still a total dick, but at least he's a total dick with a tragic past."

"Stop eating with your hands." Jae Shin reached across the table and took one of the rolls of kimbap from Yong Ha's plate, but at least he did it with his chopsticks. "Your mother would be ashamed of you. And a tragic past doesn't excuse poor behavior."

"Have you ever listened to yourself?" Yong Ha rolled his eyes. "You're the poster boy for tragic pasts excusing poor behavior."

"Hey!"

The restaurant was cramped and tiny and full and loud and the table they sat at was barely big enough for them both, but Jae Shin had still figured out how to pack it full of what seemed like the entire menu. (Yong Ha wasn't quite sure where Jae Shin kept all of the food he ate. It all had to go somewhere, right? Right. And yet...)

"Yeah, yeah," Yong Ha sighed, wiping his hand on a napkin. "It's not the same thing, don't worry. My point is that even jerks can be interesting."

Jae Shin stayed quiet for a few seconds while he chewed, his face caught somewhere between thoughtful and irritated. (Which was, come to think of it, pretty much his default expression - if Yong Ha hadn't seen him smile with his own eyes he might wonder if Jae Shin knew how.) "So is that your type, then?"

Yong Ha froze, chopsticks poised over the kimbap. "What?"

"Your type," Jae Shin repeated. He nudged Yong Ha's hand out of the way and plucked another roll of kimbap out from under him. "Total dicks."

For half a second Yong Ha was almost, almost tempted to tell Jae Shin just how much that accusation said about Jae Shin himself, but he chickened out and just shook his head instead. "That's not quite it," he said. "And anyway I think I'm swearing off men." A noise from the other side of the table made him look up. "Are you okay?"

Jae Shin just shook his head and waved a hand desperately, turning a quite fetching shade of maroon as he scrambled for his glass of water. "You're what?" he said finally, after an extremely busy few seconds. "Swearing off what?"

"Men," Yong Ha repeated, raising his eyebrows and his chopsticks in unison. "At least for a while. No offense to men but we're pretty much all terrible, aren't we? I mean," he conceded, "I guess you're all right, you don't smell that bad and you hardly ever act like an arrogant entitled douche -"

"Oh, thanks."

"- but for the most part we're a pretty depressing pack of little shits." Yong Ha shook his head despondently and shoved a roll of kimbap in his mouth. "I'm pretty horrible, I know that. All of my brothers could stand to be punched in the kidneys a few times. My dad..." A look of dull horror passed over his face. "... god, I am really not looking forward to spending another night at my mom's house, let's just say that."

(It was just his imagination that Jae Shin froze for a second, right? It had to be.) Jae Shin looked up. "You're staying with your parents?"

Yong Ha shrugged. Picked up his metal water glass and peered into it. "Just for a while. Do you know that my parents still say grace every night before dinner? I don't think I've prayed this much since I left the military, and that at least was for a good reason."

"You didn't go back to your apartment?"

Fuck. Yong Ha didn't know why, but somehow this was going wrong. "Yyyeah," he said, cocking his head and shooting Jae Shin a sheepish look around his cup. "About that. I think Jean-Baptiste still has a key, and I really don't feel like finding out for sure, you know? But Jesus - if I have to sit through one more conversation with my father where he tells me about how great married life is... there are just some things you never, ever need to know about your parents, let’s just say that."

There was a careful click as Jae Shin set his chopsticks down on the table. "You could," he said, then closed his mouth. Glared at his empty bowl of bibimbap. Pressed his hands down on his knees. "You could stay at my place."

"What?"

"If you don't want to stay with your parents," Jae Shin said quickly. "I mean, I've got a couch, and -"

"The fanciest fucking couch," Yong Ha interrupted. He stared up at the ceiling. (It was a bad idea. A terrible idea. Remember how they'd slept in the attic for months? He'd gotten too attached. It was awful, and horrible, and -) "I remember that couch. I have dreams about that couch. Are you serious?" He leaned forward. Narrowed his eyes. "What am I saying, you're always serious. I guess I mean: are you sure?"

Jae Shin just shrugged. "You don't have to."

"I..." Yong Ha swallowed, then grinned. "I'll have to pick up some stuff."  
  
  


"Where the hell are we?" Jae Shin leaned forward over the steering wheel and squinted up at the flashing neon lights overhead. The rain on the windshield made the words all but impossible to read, so he stopped trying. "I thought you said you had to pick up some stuff. This is neither your apartment nor your parents' house. Why are we in the middle of Itaewon?"

"I keep some extra stuff here just in case," Yong Ha said, already opening the passenger side door of Jae Shin's car. The open door let in a muffled thumping, heavy bass music from any number of the night clubs along the block. "Just give me a couple minutes, will you? It won't take long."

"Extra stuff?" Jae Shin called after him. "Where is 'here,' anyway? And you still haven't told me why we're in the middle of Itaewon."

Yong Ha groaned and leaned back into the car. "Look, my dad's home from work by now. This is a lot easier than going to my parents' house to pick stuff up. Do you want to explain this to him? Or anything? Ever?"

Jae Shin recoiled slightly. "Go get your stuff. I'll just... go find somewhere to park. Or something."

Yong Ha rolled his eyes and slammed the car door, turning and vanishing down one of the myriad staircases leading into the underbelly of the city.

Finding somewhere to park was surprisingly easy, and so then Jae Shin found himself sitting and waiting and stewing and spending way too much time alone with his thoughts. Most of those thoughts were along the lines of _what the hell am I doing?_  and _in what world is this a good idea?_  and _I really really really have to take a piss_.

Fuck it.

Even early evening on a Tuesday night in late March was crazy in Itaewon but he managed to find the stairway Yong Ha had disappeared down anyway. At the bottom of the stairs there was a door, and over the door was a sign, and on the sign was just one word, writ large: Hive. (The word seemed familiar somehow, but he couldn't quite place it.) The door buzzed and rattled on its hinges with the force of the music being played on the other side. Jae Shin watched it warily for a second before reaching out and pushing it open anyway.

In their college years Yong Ha had dragged him to enough bars and clubs that he knew the drill, but that didn't mean he had to like it. The music was too loud and the atmosphere too dark and the strobe lights too prevalent and even on a Tuesday night (a Tuesday night! didn't these people have homes to go to?) there were too many people. Most of the people didn't seem to be wearing very much clothing and they all were sort of the same somehow and a lot of them seemed to think that he probably wanted them to touch him (he didn't) and dear god, where the hell was the bar? Somewhere in here there had to be a bar, and somewhere behind the bar there had to be a bartender, and if there was a bartender there had to be information.

"Hey," he said, staggering up to the bar and leaning all his weight on it like a drowning man clinging to a life preserver. The music was too loud and the bartender didn't look up, so Jae Shin cleared his throat. "Uh, hey," he yelled over the music, and the bartender turned his head. "Hi. Can you help me?"

The bartender leaned toward him. "Maybe. Depends. What do you want?"

"I'm looking for someone," Jae Shin yelled, trying not to think about why the bar was so sticky. "His name's Gu Yong Ha - he's a little shorter than me, wears glasses -"

The bartender just shook his head and grinned. "Join the club!"

"I - what?" Jae Shin stared at him. "No, I - uh, I really don't... I really don't want to do that. I don't really... I mean - clubs aren't really my thing."

"No," the bartender said. "You don't understand. You're looking for Gu Yong Ha? Join the club." He waved a hand in a broad, illustrative gesture and nodded out toward the dance floor. "Half the people in here are looking for him, and the other half just don’t know they want him yet."

Jae Shin turned around, following the bartender's hand, and the realization washed over him like a bucket of cold water upended from a great height. The nondescript underground door. The location in the middle of Itaewon. Why every single person on the dance floor had struck him as sort of suspiciously the same as every other person on the dance floor.

"This is a gay bar," he said, and hiccuped spectacularly.

The bartender leaned over the bar toward him. "Listen, kid. You're new here, so I'll give you some advice."

"Some advice?" A gay bar. A gay bar. This was a gay bar. The place Yong Ha stashed extra stuff _just in case_  was a gay bar hidden under one of the side streets of Itaewon. Somewhere in there there had to be something that made sense, but for the life of him Jae Shin couldn't figure out how to find it. "Some advice. Um. Okay."

"The thing with Gu Yong Ha -" This was accompanied by a vague hand gesture and a half shrug "- the thing with Gu Yong Ha is that pretty much everyone wants him. But he's picky, you know? And I don't think he's ever stuck with any one person for more than a month. It's usually a week, maybe two. He's too stuck on this one guy from a long time ago."

Jae Shin clenched his jaw. Touched the edge of the bar to steady himself. "The French guy."

"What?" The bartender eyeballed him. "Who?"

"You have to be kidding me," came Yong Ha's voice at his side, and then Yong Ha's hand was around his elbow, Yong Ha's chest was pressing against his arm, Yong Ha's weight was propelling him away from the bar and toward the door. "What the hell are you doing in here? We are leaving right now."

"This is a gay bar," Jae Shin said, letting Yong Ha shove him along. "Is this that Hive place? The one you thought I might be from when I called you last summer?"

"Oh, god," Yong Ha groaned, and walked a little faster. People were starting to turn to look at them. "We can talk about this in the car. Even though I haven't been here in months I just barely managed to avoid running into three different guys I used to date and unless you feel like defending my honor in triplicate we should probably leave."

"This is a gay bar," Jae Shin said a third time, not quite able to unstick himself from the concept. "Wait - three guys? You've dated three more guys?"

"Sure," Yong Ha said weakly, reaching around Jae Shin's limp arm to pull open the door and shove Jae Shin out with all of his strength. "Three. Let's call it three. Three is a good number."

"More than three?!"

"Where's your car?" Yong Ha was in front of him now, dragging him up the stairs by his wrist. "And why did you have to come in, anyway? I was only in there for ten minutes, you could have just waited."

"The bartender said that everyone in there is looking for you," Jae Shin said, trying to keep up well enough that Yong Ha didn't yank his arm out of its socket.

Yong Ha stopped at the top of the stairs, so suddenly that Jae Shin almost slammed into him. "Do not," he said firmly, swinging around, "do not listen to him."

"I was just-"

"Moon Jae Shin, heaven help me -" Yong Ha shook an accusing forefinger under Jae Shin's nose "- it's my own personal business, that's all. And I know you, and I know you're going to think about it too much, and I know you're going to get it completely wrong. So stop it. Stop right there. Don't even start."

Jae Shin stared at him, standing in the neon lights of Itaewon, the green and red and purple and orange and white reflecting off of the pools of rain in the street. He had a canvas messenger bag slung over his right shoulder, bulging and floppy and looking like something left over from his stint in the military. His left hand was still wrapped tight around Jae Shin's wrist and the look on his face was somewhere between frustrated and worried and embarrassed and - somehow - just a little bit amused.

A little advice, kid - everyone was looking for Gu Yong Ha. Everyone was looking for him, and everyone wanted him, and he never stuck with anyone for long. But maybe if he didn't try to keep him? Maybe if he didn't try to hold him down -

He almost said something then, almost opened his mouth and let the words fall out (but what words? what could he even say?), but he got stuck somewhere. He lifted his hand, rested it on Yong Ha’s shoulder, slid it around the back of his neck.

"Okay," Jae Shin said, getting it completely wrong.

Yong Ha groaned, throwing his head back, and then punched Jae Shin in the arm. "God, you're so _stupid_ sometimes. Can we just go home? I'm exhausted and I want to go lie down on your fancy couch."

"The fanciest fucking couch."

"Right. The fanciest fucking couch."

 


	10. Everything Hits At Once

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In This Chapter: a demonic charm; secrets come out; Gu Yong Ha gets a little bit drunk; Moon Jae Shin tries again.

**The First Night**

The fridge stood open, Jae Shin staring into its depths like a man trying to find purpose in the darkness of the sea. The glass shelves contained almost nothing - the dregs of Yoon Shik's porridge from, god, over two weeks ago was the main attraction - and to say he was beginning to regret inviting Gu Yong Ha into his apartment was like saying that perhaps Pompeii circa 79 CE wasn't the best place to sell fire insurance. "Hey, Yong Ha," he called over his shoulder. "Do you want a beer?"

"When do I not want a beer?" came Yong Ha's voice from the direction of the living room, strangely muffled.

When Jae Shin rounded the corner, a can of beer in each hand, Yong Ha was standing shirtless in the middle of the living room and holding a fine-knit, long-sleeved sweater out in front of him with both hands. Jae Shin didn’t drop either can of beer but it was a closer thing than he’d care to admit. "I think this stretched out," Yong Ha said thoughtfully, flipping it around so that the bottom hem was facing up. "It seems bigger than it used to be."

"Maybe you shrank," Jae Shin managed to say. Gu Yong Ha standing shirtless in the middle of his apartment (the scar on his shoulder brilliant and silver and shining in the light) wasn't something he might ever be prepared for. "Stranger things have happened."

"Eh," Yong Ha said from within the depths of the sweater. "I highly doubt that that's what happened. Pretty sure this just stretched out." His head popped out of the collar, hair crazy and glasses askew. "I don't know. How do I look?"

The sweater was oversized to an almost hilarious degree, his hair wasn't tousled so much as it was completely up-ended, his socks didn't match and one of them was almost coming off, and his glasses - "You look fine," Jae Shin said, tossing one of the cans of beer to Yong Ha with a loose underhand and trying to act like everything was normal. (Because it was, right? How many times had they changed clothes in front of each and never given it a second thought? How many times had Yong Ha slept in his house? Hell, how many times had Yong Ha slept in his bed?)

Yong Ha caught the can out of the air and turned on his heel to fall back onto Jae Shin's couch. "I bet you say that to all the girls."

"Not really." Jae Shin sat down on the opposite end of the couch and cracked the can open. "I have to get up kind of early. The police are going to be at the bakery to set up in the morning, and I have to go let them in."

Yong Ha stared down at the beer in his hand. "When did you say the window is getting fixed?"

"Day after tomorrow."

"And opening up again the day after that?" Yong Ha whistled. "I'm going to have to start working, then. You think we have time to go grocery shopping tomorrow morning before the police show up?"

Jae Shin groaned and leaned back against the couch. "Yeah, I guess. But you'll probably have to trim down that list of yours at least a little."

"Difficult, but not impossible. I'll figure something out." Yong Ha swung his legs up onto the couch and sat against the arm on his end, throwing back an impressive quantity of beer. "So when you say that you have to get up kind of early does that mean that we're not going to have a sleepover? I was looking forward to braiding your hair and talking about boys."

"Stop," Jae Shin growled into his can of beer. "I'm not going to talk about boys with you."

Yong Ha slid down to lay his head against the arm of the couch, bringing his knees up and squishing his stocking feet under Jae Shin's leg. He closed his eyes. "More's the pity. We'll find someone for you, Shin, mark my words. Probably some nice girl who can put up with all kinds of horrible behavior. Not the jealous type, of course, or she’ll hate me."

Jae Shin stared at him - what was that even supposed to mean, anyway? - and debated whether or not he should just get up and go to bed. He should, right? Right. It was the best possible choice after a day full of incredibly bad decisions; just go to bed, go to sleep, get up tomorrow and try not to do anything too stupid.

"So are you gay?" Fuck. Like that. That was stupid.

Yong Ha didn't open his eyes - just made a face and shook his head. "Hell no. Have you ever seen a woman?" He opened one eye. "Maybe I'm asking the wrong person. No, I'm not gay. 'Bisexual' comes the closest, but even that implies a certain level of exclusivity to which I'm not fully willing to commit." He adjusted his position on the couch, scooching up a bit to lean his back against the arm. "What about you?"

Jae Shin paused, the can of beer millimeters away from his mouth. He glanced at Yong Ha out of the corner of his eye. "What do you mean, what about me?"

Yong Ha kicked his legs out to rest them on Jae Shin's lap, ankles crossed. "Oh, you know."

Jae Shin looked down at Yong Ha's legs. Thought about shoving them off but didn't, just rested his hand on one of Yong Ha's shins instead. "Not really."

"Are you straight? Gay? You never seemed to like anyone. When we were kids, I mean. And later - in high school, college." He shot Jae Shin a funny look. "Certainly not now."

Jae Shin took an extremely large drink of beer, half to gain some liquid courage and half just to buy himself some time. "I don't -" Well, okay. Hold on. "I never did. Like anyone, I mean." That wasn't completely true (strictly speaking) but he didn't know how else to say it. "Does it matter?"

Yong Ha shrugged. "I don't know. Not really. I’m just curious." He leaned his head back and closed his eyes again. "So what is it, then? Are you straight? Bi? Gay? Nothing at all?"

"I don't know," Jae Shin said, because he didn't. "Maybe I'm nothing at all."

Yong Ha grinned. "Except for me, right?"

Jae Shin looked down at Yong Ha's legs in his lap. At his hand resting on Yong Ha's shin. At the curve of his hip, the way his fingers twined together over his stomach, the way his throat arched. He'd finished his beer and he could feel the heat starting to hum in his chest and Yong Ha was warm and the lights were dim and they could be his parents right now. They could be his parents, sitting in the low light of the evening in the living room, watching a movie, comfortable with each other.

How had it gone from annoyance to discomfort to uncomfortable to comfortable? It was like the beginning of their friendship was repeating itself, when Yong Ha was obnoxious and smart-mouthed and Jae Shin was dark and bitter and angry all the time and hated hated hated this stupid damn kid until one day he didn't anymore, until one day he kind of thought he was okay sometimes, until one day he couldn't get through a whole day without talking to him, until one day he got so drunk and so lonely and so sad that he reached out for him like a handhold on the side of a cliff.

"I don't know," Jae Shin said again, even though he did. "I need to go to bed."

 

* * *

**The First Day**

Jae Shin stood in the doorway of the office, arms crossed over his chest, lips pursed. "Do you need anything?"

The cops had covered the window with black paper, moved his desk against the wall, put down thick foam pads to mask the sound of footsteps. There was a row of tables shoved up against one side of the office, filled with nearly a dozen screens, each showing a different part of the bakery. One showed the front door, another watched the display case, another showed outside the back door of the bakery. There were too many to pay attention to, so he didn't try.

Detective Jung looked up at him, then down again - at the rows of screens, the keyboards, the tangled cords and scattered notepads. "No, I think -"

The hand on Jae Shin's elbow was so light that it almost didn't register; he just stepped aside without even thinking about it, and Yong Ha spun past him into the attic. "You're the worst host, Shin," Yong Ha said, reaching out to pat Jae Shin sweetly on the cheek. "I brought cake!"

It was like the world changed. The officers who had only seconds ago been bent over their keyboards, busying themselves with laying down foam pads, all of them sat up just a little straighter, adjusted their cuffs, puffed up their chests. "Who...?" Detective Jung said, staring at Yong Ha for half a second before throwing Jae Shin a plaintive look.

"Gu Yong Ha," Jae Shin said through clenched teeth. "Our beautiful and charming patissiere. What are you doing up here?"

"Making sure everyone is comfortable," Yong Ha replied promptly, sidestepping around him toward the row of screens, a tray of cake held precariously and expertly on one hand. "And how long have you been a policeman?" This was to one of the officers seated at the desks, who seemed to very suddenly go extremely pink and somewhat shiny. "It seems dangerous. Very heroic."

He seemed different somehow, in some ways even more untouchable and in other ways... in other ways he seemed incredibly, obnoxiously, violently touchable. Jae Shin had spent the last six months trying not to notice how perfect his skin was, how the curve of his mouth looked when he was thinking about something, how his hands moved, how he walked, and now it was like he'd never even tried at all. Yong Ha was the only thing in the room worth looking at.

"Three years," the officer stuttered, twisting his hands in his lap, cheeks flushing. He blinked and seemed to remember himself, shooting upwards and reaching out his hands for the tray. "That looks heavy, do you need-?"

Yong Ha smiled, turning his head to tuck his chin against his shoulder in a way that was almost shy. "I don't, but that's very sweet of you." He slid the tray onto the table and sighed contentedly, brushing his hands together at a job well done. "This all certainly looks very complicated. Is this all to keep us safe?"

"Yong Ha," Jae Shin said, through a tight throat and even tighter ribs.

"It's not so complicated," said another officer, stumbling over himself to move closer to Yong Ha. "See, you just need to make sure you get all the angles, right, and -"

"I did that part," said a third, jumping to his feet and pointing at a cluster of three screens that showed the whole main seating area inside the bakery. "Do you see? There's quite a lot of math involved, I'm very -"

"What kind of cake is this?" said the first officer, ogling the tray. "Is that angel food? My mother used to make me angel food cake."

"Yong Ha," Jae Shin growled.

"- and I make all my own whipped cream," Yong Ha was saying, reaching out and taking a scoop of cream from one of the profiteroles on the tray onto his left middle and ring fingers. "It's very good. You should try it."

Then he put his fingers in his mouth, and every single man in the entire room watched, transfixed, as he very, very slowly sucked the whipped cream from his fingers.

"Gu Yong Ha!" Jae Shin choked out.

("Oh my god," whispered one of the officers, his voice low and throaty and reverent.)

"What?" Yong Ha turned to look at him over his shoulder, his head cocked curiously, the tip of his tongue flicking out to lick a speck of whipped cream from the corner of his mouth. (His mouth. His mouth. God damn it.) "I know you don't like cake, but that doesn't mean -"

"We are leaving," Jae Shin interrupted in a tight voice, striding forward and grabbing Yong Ha firmly by the elbow. "Thank you," he said to the floorboards, either unwilling or unable to make eye contact with any of room's inhabitants. "This has been very... um... have some cake. We're leaving. Goodbye."

The door slammed shut behind them.

"What the _fuck_ was that," Jae Shin hissed, half shoving, half carrying Yong Ha down the stairs. "What the fuck. What the fuck was that."

Yong Ha stumbled off the last step and skittered to a stop next to the display case, turning around and fixing Jae Shin with a look almost as affronted as it was self-satisfied. "What, are you jealous?"

"No," Jae Shin sputtered, his face still overheating from the inside out. "I am not - what were you doing? You did something. You were doing something, I know you were doing something. What the fuck was that?"

Yong Ha just shrugged, but he'd dimmed a little - he wasn't glowing in technicolor anymore like he had been just a few moments ago in the attic, so vibrant as to be almost painful to look at. "I wanted to figure something out, and anyway I haven't made anything in a few days and I wanted to get some opinions before I make a whole ton of cake." He cocked his head and turned his eyes toward the ceiling. "Although... do you really think they'd tell me if they don't like it?"

"Maybe," Jae Shin said. His mouth went tight and he shook his head, watching as Yong Ha seemed to slip back into himself like an actor falling out of character. "No. I don't know. Did you do something?"

"Just distracted them." Yong Ha wandered over toward one of the tables near the taped-up window, brushing flour off his apron as he walked, and he was normal. He was normal again. He was himself, he was Gu Yong Ha, he was exactly the right amount of maddeningly untouchable. "Stop making that face, it'll stick that way. Are you all right?"

Jae Shin stared at him. At some point his heart rate had shot through the roof and he was only just now starting to come down from it and hell if he could figure out why, but now he just felt tired and irritated and confused and another, darker, greener kind of emotion he couldn't quite put his finger on. "Fine," he said tightly, following despite himself. "Don't you have something to do? We open back up the day after tomorrow. Something to bake? Maybe you have to go take more cake upstairs?"

"The ovens are full," Yong Ha said, shrugging with one shoulder and sucking a dollop of whipped cream off of one of his knuckles (god damn it) and pulling one of the chairs out with his free hand, sliding into it. "And no thanks. I got what I went up there for, and anyway you're a lot more interesting."

Jae Shin froze, hand on the back of the other chair. "What? I'm what?"

"It's good to be back," Yong Ha sighed, leaning back in the chair. "I was starting to get really bored, you know?"

"God forbid." Jae Shin sat down next to him, curving forward to prop himself up on his elbows. "I'm serious. Upstairs - did you do something?"

Yong Ha made a face. "You know how I told you that people just fall in love with me, and I don't do it on purpose?" He shrugged with one shoulder. "That wasn't entirely honest. I don't usually - do it on purpose, I mean - but I can turn it on and off if I want." He held out a hand, palm down, and wobbled it back and forth as if to illustrate uncertainty. "It's more of an art than a science. I call it the Demonic Charm."

"Have you ever done that to me?"

"Nah," Yong Ha said. "I don't use it on people I actually like. It's mostly for getting out of trouble, to be honest."

"Oh," Jae Shin said, getting stuck on the 'people I actually like' part. For half a second he'd almost been hoping that Yong Ha had done that to him at some point and he just hadn't noticed; it would be easier than actually -

"Why?"

Jae Shin blinked. "What?"

"Why do you ask?" Yong Ha grinned at him, his eyes narrowing and curving like a cat's. "Do you want me to use it on you?"

"No," Jae Shin said quickly, jerking backward. "No. Thank you. Please don't."

 

* * *

**The Second Night**

"Don't get me wrong, I'm excited to go back to work full time," Yong Ha said, arms elbow deep in the kitchen sink, the foam nearly spilling over onto the counter, "but hanging out doing nothing is pretty nice too."

They'd gone grocery shopping that morning before heading to the bakery, mostly to pick up basics for the shop kitchen so that Yong Ha could make literally anything at all, but Jae Shin had ended up buying a surprising amount of food for his own apartment. (What, had he been out? That didn't make any sense.) That night after they'd gotten back Jae Shin had unloaded everything and wordlessly made a huge batch of kimchi fried rice, and no amount of complaining had gotten Yong Ha out of doing the dishes afterward.

"Don't get used to it," Jae Shin said, reaching around Yong Ha to drop a spoon into the water. "Tomorrow the window's getting fixed and then the next day it's back to work."

"Yeah, yeah." Yong Ha scrubbed at a particularly stubborn bowl for a second. "How did that window get broken, anyway? I don't think I ever got that story." There was silence from the kitchen behind him. "Shin?"

"It was some punk kids. I don't know what happened."

Yong Ha stared at himself in the reflection of the window over the sink, making eye contact with himself for a second before glancing over at Jae Shin - standing still next to the kitchen table, back facing the sink. He nudged his glasses up his nose with his arm and shoulder. "Some punk kids, huh. Funny that they'd be out that early. Don't youths today have to go to school or something?"

"Yeah. I don't know."

A few swishes in the sink to make sure he'd gotten all the dishes, and Yong Ha pulled the plug. "Kind of convenient timing though, don't you think?" he said, wiping his hands dry on a towel. "I'm gone, you run out of stock, somebody breaks the front window." He turned around and leaned against the counter, throwing the towel over his shoulder. "Kind of an interesting coincidence."

"What was that thing you said? Back when you hired the Sea Cucumber." Jae Shin moved around him to get to the fridge, not looking him in the eye. "There's a reason there's a word for this kind of situation?"

Jae Shin, you absolute jerk. "That was different."

"Hm," Jae Shin said, opening the fridge door and leaning over to peer inside. "Do you want a beer?"

"Are you avoiding the subject?"

Jae Shin stood up, shook his hair out of his eyes, rested his arm on the refrigerator door, and fixed Yong Ha with a hooded glare. "I'm just asking if you want a beer."

Despite himself, Yong Ha swallowed. Maybe someday Jae Shin could look at him like that and it wouldn't hit him like a steamroller, but today was not that day. "I always want a beer when you're around. You're only tolerable when I'm drunk. Did you break the window?"

"No," Jae Shin said, holding out a beer.

"I suspected as much," Yong Ha replied. He cracked the beer open and sat down at the table. "I'm disappointed in you. I thought you stopped doing that kind of thing years ago. Didn't I train you out of it?"

"I didn't break the window."

"Don't lie all the time," Yong Ha said. "It'll become a habit, and habits are hard to break. Where did I go wrong?" He sighed into his beer. "You think you raise them right, and then they disappoint you."

Jae Shin pulled out the chair on the other side of the table. "You left," he said mildly. "Twice. I'm not sure that counts as raising me right."

Yong Ha stared at the table. "To be fair," he said, "the first time was because you acted like a homophobic jerk."

Jae Shin threw back the rest of his beer and set the empty can on the table, turning it slightly with his fingertips. "Do you know," he said after swallowing, "that everyone on my base thought I was gay?"

"What?

"When I was in the army. Every single person thought I was gay." Jae Shin smiled, that lopsided grin that Yong Ha knew meant This Is A Terrible Idea. Shook his head. Tapped the empty can on the wood a couple of times and didn't look Yong Ha in the eye. "I don't think I said anything to make them think it. I'm pretty damn sure I didn't do anything. I'm not exactly the most touchy-feely person out there."

"Tell me about it," Yong Ha mumbled, watching him.

"Everybody thought I was gay, and they made my life hell for two years. So yeah, when you brought up what happened at Nonsan I got freaked out, and -" He twisted his mouth. "Never mind. It's not important. I'm sorry I acted like a homophobic jerk."

"Jesus." This wasn't how he'd expected this conversation to go. This wasn't what he'd expected to hear. He'd stopped trying to figure out why Jae Shin had acted the way he had in his bedroom that night. It had been more than a year, closer to two years maybe, since the last time he'd laid awake at night wondering if he could have done something differently, if there had been anything he could have done to change the outcome. Yong Ha stood up. Went to the fridge. Got out another beer. "I didn't know. I'm sorry."

"It's not important," Jae Shin said again.

"It kind of is." Yong Ha set the beer down on the table in front of Jae Shin (if someone had asked why he wouldn't have been able to give a good answer - maybe it was some kind of weird apology, or a peace offering) and sat down again. "How many secrets do we have from each other, anyway? This is getting ridiculous. It’s already ridiculous. It’s been ridiculous for a long time."

"I broke the window," Jae Shin said after a second, reaching for the beer. "And I started smoking again."

"I know," Yong Ha said. "About both. I wasn't going to mention the smoking."

 

* * *

**The Third Night**

"I can't believe you."

"This was your idea," Jae Shin said, trying and failing to pick up the soju bottle on the table in front of him. (Soju bottles weren't supposed to move, right? Right. Right. Did the damn thing grow legs when he wasn't looking?) "God damn it. This thing."

"Okay," Yong Ha replied, reaching out and grabbing the bottle out of Jae Shin's reach and setting it down on the floor behind his side of the couch (prompting a tiny "nooo" to spill forth from Jae Shin's lips). "But I had no idea you were going to cry that much."

"I didn't -"

"The rules," Yong Ha interrupted, one index finger held aloft, "were very simple. A drinking game, in which we watch way too many episodes of Heirs -"

"Any episodes of Heirs is too many episodes of Heirs," Jae Shin mumbled, slumping against the back of the couch.

"- and take drinks at predesignated points," Yong Ha continued, shooting Jae Shin a glare. "First, you have to take a drink whenever someone cries. Second, you have to take a shot whenever there's a kiss. And third -" and it was at this point that he fixed Jae Shin with an extremely rude look "- you have to finish your beer if you cry."

Jae Shin shook his head, covering his face with both hands. "I didn't... I didn't cry. I didn't."

"Excuse me? You cried twice in the first episode." Yong Ha cocked his head thoughtfully. "I had no idea you had so many feelings. Is there anything else about you I don't know?"

"Yes," Jae Shin said decisively. He turned his head to look at Yong Ha (too drunk to be embarrassed by how clumsy the movement was) and slowly, slowly, slowly fell backward until he was leaning against the arm of the couch. He hung an arm over the side of the sofa and arched one eyebrow.

Yong Ha stared at him for a second. "Okay, fine. I'll bite. What is it?"

Jae Shin shook his head - gently, to keep it from sloshing too much. (God, but it was getting warm in the living room.) "Guess."

A few seconds of irritable adjusting had Yong Ha facing Jae Shin on the couch, leaning against the opposing arm. He took off his glasses and polished the lenses on the bottom of his shirt, squinting across the distance at his best friend. "God, I don't know anymore. Do you have a sister I don't know about? Are you adopted? No, that can't be it, you're too much like your father -"

"Hey!"

"- Yeah, yeah." Yong Ha paused. Snapped his fingers excitedly. "No, I've got it. You have a crush on Kim Yoon Shik, don't you?"

"I -" Jae Shin blinked, taken completely off guard. "- what?"

"He's pretty girly," Yong Ha said mildly, doing that thing with his mouth where he was trying not to grin but not managing to be very successful. "Adorable, even. Have you seen his hands?" He whistled a long descending note.

Jae Shin shook his head again, more aggressively this time. "No!"

"Really? They're right at the ends of his arms. Are you sure -"

"My secret," Jae Shin interrupted, "is not about Kim Yoon Shik."

"Oh," Yong Ha said. The look on his face changed a little, but Jae Shin couldn't figure out exactly how. (It was moments like this that Jae Shin was reminded how unexpectedly large Yong Ha was on the inside - as superficial and flighty as he looked on the outside, somewhere in there was something that was... something, something. He was too drunk to think this through.) "So, uh..."

"My secret," Jae Shin said, leaning back over the arm of the couch and scrabbling around blindly on the floor, "is that I have another bottle of soju over here that you didn't know about and now I'm going to drink it whether you like it or not."

Yong Ha gaped and sat forward. "No."

Jae Shin found the bottle with questing fingers and hauled it up delightedly. "Yes," he replied victoriously, twisting the cap off.

"Moon Jae Shin," Yong Ha said, getting up on his knees and moving awkwardly along the couch toward him, "you are way too drunk. I'm cutting you off. Give me that."

It was a testament to his skill at drinking that he got nearly halfway through the bottle before Yong Ha got to it, wrapping his fingers around the neck and tugging it out of his (admittedly loose) grip. "Hey," he said, "hey, give that back."

"No." Yong Ha plucked the cap from where Jae Shin had dropped it on his lap and twisted it closed before falling back to sit against the opposite end of the couch again. He tucked the bottle behind him, between his back and the arm. "I can't believe you."

"This was your idea," Jae Shin said again. He leaned forward unsteadily - he hadn't been this drunk five minutes ago, right? he couldn't even tell if he had skin anymore - and advanced on Yong Ha. "Give that back."

"And again," Yong Ha said, "no. Look at yourself. You're not 21 anymore, you're going to wake up with a hangover, and who's going to have to deal with that?" He pointed at himself. "Me. I'm going to have to deal with that."

"I'll deal with it." The words were coming out slurred, and Jae Shin was... he was on his knees on the couch, one hand on the back for balance, leaning over Yong Ha. Somewhere between Yong Ha and the arm of the couch there was most of a bottle of soju, but he had to get through Yong Ha first, and -

"What are you doing?"

\- and Yong Ha was way, way closer than he had been a second ago.

The soju crept up on him like a thief in the night, taking hold of his neck, his throat, his lungs; god, what _was_ he doing? His skin was too tight, his bones too heavy, his vision tracking and blurring like a smeared lens, and Yong Ha was... he was right there, like he always was. Like he always should have been. Like he always should be.

The thing about being drunk isn't necessarily that it makes you do things you wouldn't normally do - it takes down your inhibitions, stifles the voice in the back of your head that whispers things like _this is a bad idea_ and _he'll never talk to you again_ and _don't_. You're more authentically, abrasively, embarrassingly yourself when you're drunk, and you make choices you would never, ever make with that voice in the back of your head pulling you back.

"You froze up," he slurred, still hanging over Yong Ha, his hand still on the back of the couch.

The voice in the back of Jae Shin's head stood up and screamed, and he didn't pay any attention to it at all.

 

Gu Yong Ha was a little drunk.

Okay, all right, he was a lot drunk, but compared to Jae Shin he was practically sober and at least he still had the sense to stop drinking while he was ahead. Jae Shin had never had that amount of sense. Any amount of alcohol made more alcohol sound like a good idea to Moon Jae Shin.

But still, Gu Yong Ha was a little drunk and his reflexes were slower than they would be normally and so when Jae Shin got up on his knees, came toward him suddenly, hung over him with hooded eyes and a half-smile on his lips -

"I what?" Yong Ha stuttered, finally registering what Jae Shin had said. He pushed himself backward on the couch, pressed his back against the arm (god, what a horrible place to put a bottle of soju - what had he been thinking?), tried to keep his distance because he was kind of drunk and Jae Shin was really close and he didn't quite trust himself.

"You froze up," Jae Shin repeated, his voice low and deep and rough like it was in the morning right after he woke up. He sounded half asleep. He looked half asleep, his eyes blurry and unfocused. He looked... he looked like himself, which was terrible. His throat. His shoulders. The neck of his t-shirt was stretched out and the curve of his collarbone was the worst thing that had ever happened to Yong Ha in his entire life.

"What are you talking about?"

Jae Shin inhaled a quick breath like he was about to say something, but didn't - just held the breath and watched him for a second.

Yong Ha swallowed. Tried to scoot back a little further but found that he was (tragically) out of room to scoot. "Hey. Shin. You awake?"

"No.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m trying again,” Jae Shin said.

Cupped one hand under Yong Ha's jaw. Gently angled Yong Ha's face upward. Leaned down. Pressed his lips against Yong Ha's mouth.

... What the fuck?

Yong Ha knew (he knew, he knew) that he should stop him. Jae Shin was drunk, he probably didn't really want to do this, he was drunk. He was drunk. He was so fucking drunk. His skin was hot and his breath was stuttered and his mouth tasted like soju (his _mouth_ , Jae Shin's _mouth_ , since when did he know what Moon Jae Shin's _mouth_ tasted like) but god, god, try as he might when Yong Ha moved under him it was to arch his back and curl a hand over Jae Shin's neck and breathe a sighing breath against him.

"You're drunk," Yong Ha breathed - pulling back, closing his eyes, hating himself for it. "You need to go to bed."

But instead Jae Shin moved against him, slow and careful like he was trying to find something in the dark, sliding one knee between his legs and curving one hand around his waist, under his shirt, fingers slipping into the waistband of his jeans. Jae Shin's mouth found his jaw, his throat, the hollow where his shoulder met his neck, and god, god, god - Yong Ha's hand tightened over the back of Jae Shin's neck without permission - this wasn't good. This wasn't good. Jae Shin was drunk as hell and this wasn't okay.

"Shin," Yong Ha said, his voice hoarse. (This would be so much easier if Jae Shin's mouth wasn't on his throat.) "Moon Jae Shin. I have work in the morning."

"I won't fire you if you're late," Jae Shin mumbled against his skin, fingers tightening on his waist.

"That isn't the point. You're drunk. Go to bed."

Jae Shin sighed and loosened, tucking his face against Yong Ha's throat and laying on him. "Okay."

Yong Ha opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. Took in a slow, careful breath. Tried to ignore Jae Shin's heat, the feel of his hand on his waist, the way his lips had tasted. This was hell. "You need to get up."

"Make up your mind," Jae Shin groaned, shoving himself upward. "Go to bed, get up..." He rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. His hair was sticking up every which way and his t-shirt had gotten twisted and his face was pink with alcohol and it took every ounce of willpower Yong Ha had not to pull him right back down.

"Yeah, yeah." Yong Ha untangled his legs from Jae Shin and swung them over the edge of the couch. Set his feet on the floor. "I know. I'm the worst." He stood up and held his hand out. "You need to go to bed."

Jae Shin stood up. Swayed, just a little bit. Laid a hand on Yong Ha's shoulder and peered blearily into his face. "Yong Ha," he slurred. "Gu Yong Ha."

"What?"

"Spent way too long not saying your name." He nodded jerkily, decisively. "I do dumb shit sometimes."

"Tell me about it," Yong Ha said, stomach twisting, reaching up to grab Jae Shin by the wrist. "It's time to go to bed."

"I missed you too much," Jae Shin said, his head unsteady on his neck. "I couldn't say your name or I thought I was gonna die."

"You're drunk."

"Yeah," Jae Shin said. Grinned. Reached out and patted Yong Ha's face. "Gu Yong Ha. You're back. That's good."

"I know." It took some doing but eventually Yong Ha figured out a way to pull Jae Shin along toward his bedroom without tripping up one or both of them. He shouldered through the door and hit the light. "Get in bed, all right?"

Jae Shin took a few wobbling steps before overbalancing just enough to tip over onto the bed, hitting the mattress and bouncing a little before settling. He patted the bed next to him. "It's bed time."

No. No. This wasn't how this was going to go. Yong Ha wasn't going to sleep in the same bed as Jae Shin, not after everything, not after... god damn it. "You can sleep by yourself," Yong Ha sighed, sitting down on the bed next to Jae Shin. "You're not gonna die."

Jae Shin rolled over onto his back and squinted up at the ceiling. "You might leave," he said. His voice sounded almost sober, the slur gone somehow.

It was probably his imagination but Yong Ha felt almost as though his lungs stopped working for a second, a sudden stutter before they began to pull air again. "I'm not gonna leave," he said. "Just... don't keep secrets from me anymore, all right?"

"I broke my arm when I was six," Jae Shin announced, his voice right back at drunk as though it had never left. He rolled back onto his stomach and grabbed Yong Ha's wrist. "I had to get braces when I was nine because I got in a fight and all the adult teeth that had grown in almost got knocked out. I thought I had a crush on a girl this one time but it turned out that I was just allergic to her perfume."

"Shin -"

"I failed my driving test three times before I finally passed," Jae Shin hissed into the folds of the blanket, "and even then I think my dad might have bribed somebody."

"I know that one. I think about it every time I'm in the car with you."

"Okay." Jae Shin opened his eyes. He looked drunk and half-asleep and not at all like someone who would be able to wake up in the morning without a headache. "Okay. How about this one."

"Go to sleep, Shin."

"You're the only person I've ever kissed," Jae Shin mumbled into the mattress, closing his eyes again. "The only one."

Yong Ha stared at him. Jae Shin sighed and settled and his grip on Yong Ha's wrist loosened as he finally fell asleep. "I know," Yong Ha said into the quiet of the bedroom. He wasn't saying it to Jae Shin. Jae Shin was asleep. "That's why I'm not going to kiss you when you're drunk."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You made it. We made it through together. The kissing begins now. They're just going to make out for the rest of the fic. (I'm only kind of kidding.)
> 
> What Yong Ha is talking about (very, very poorly) when he says "nothing at all" is asexuality. Never let it be said that Yong Ha is perfect, but he gets that not everybody is into what he's into (i.e. everything) even if he doesn't know all the words for it.


	11. Everything Is Different

Jerk. Asshole. Piece of shit. Bastard. Coward. The absolute worst. The absolute fucking, fucking worst. The epithets were a drum beat, the thump of bass under every swinging movement, keeping time and keeping calm. At a certain point it had become so rhythmic Yong Ha wasn't even really thinking the words anymore - they were just being thought all by themselves, loud and hard and in a perfect staccato pulse under his skin as he worked pastry dough between his hands and the butcher block counter.

He'd woken up that morning with a headache. He'd woken up that morning with his arms crossed over his chest like a corpse in a coffin. He'd woken up that morning with his heart in his throat. He'd woken up that morning on Jae Shin's couch in Jae Shin's living room in Jae Shin's apartment only 30 feet from where Jae Shin lay asleep in his own bed.

For five minutes he'd laid flat on his back in the quiet of the living room, (sunlight creeping over the floorboards like a thief), laid flat on his back with his arms crossed over his chest like a corpse in a coffin and tried to figure out whether he'd just been dreaming. It had to have been just a dream. Not even a weird dream, either - god knew how many fucking stupid dreams he'd had over the years, dreams where Jae Shin had reached out and touched him, dreams where Jae Shin had heard his heartbeat jump and stutter, dreams where Jae Shin didn't pull away at the last second.

But it had been weird. If it had been a dream it... it would have been weird, that’s all. In all of those (fucking stupid) dreams Jae Shin was strange and silent and certain and it always felt _wrong_ somehow, like something didn't quite fit. Like a suit that had been tailored for someone else, a sweater that had shrunk in the wash.

Jae Shin hadn't been strange. He hadn't been silent. He'd been drunk and stupid and wobbling and when he'd leaned over, when Jae Shin had curved over him like a comet pulling into orbit, he'd been certain and uncertain at the same time, curious and worried but still somehow convinced of something only he knew.

It was a mystery, who Yong Ha was furious with more. Was it with Jae Shin, drunk and stupid and wobbling and now undoubtedly, undoubtedly so hungover he was nearly dead? Was it with himself, cowardly and stupid and stupid and stupid and stupid and -

It had been a dream. It had to have been a dream. There was nothing else it could possibly be, so it was a dream, and that was fine. It was fine.

For five minutes he'd laid flat on his back in the quiet of the living room, (sunlight creeping over the floorboards like a thief), laid flat on his back with his arms crossed over his chest like a corpse in a coffin and knew without a single strand of doubt that everything he remembered happening (the soju behind the couch, the moment of imbalance, the press of Jae Shin's lips against his mouth) had happened. It had all happened, in real life, and he'd let it happen.

When he was eighteen years old he'd made a pact with himself, silent and secret in the furthest recesses of his heart, that he would never ever ever fall for a straight boy. Not once. Not a single one. But he'd made that pact (silent and secret) with his eyes on Jae Shin, and even then he'd known that when he said _never ever ever_ he meant _not again_.

Yong Ha picked up a rolling pin and the rhythm repeated all over again, fury and self-loathing rolling over him in waves. Jerk. Asshole. Piece of shit. Bastard. Coward. The absolute worst. The absolute fucking, fucking worst. Who was he talking to? Was he talking to himself, or was he talking to -

As if on cue, the back door opened and Jae Shin stepped out of the rain and into the warmth and heat and light of the kitchen.

Yong Ha jerked upright, rolling pin clenched almost defensively in his fists. "Hey," he said, and hated the way his voice came out - rough and thin and stupid. "You look half dead."

Jae Shin shouldered out of his coat, hung it on the hook, rubbed his eyes with the back of his wrists. "I left most of my vitality on the floor of the bathroom. Never let me drink that much again, all right?"

"I tried not to let you last night," Yong Ha said. He swallowed. "You're... you're kind of convincing."

"Wouldn't it be great if I remembered convincing you?" Jae Shin grinned at him, thin but sincere. "I'd be able to talk you into all kinds of things."

"Yeah," Yong Ha said. The twist in his stomach was half disappointment and half relief. "Probably."

Jerk. Asshole. Piece of shit. _Coward_.

 

When Moon Jae Shin woke up the sun had risen hours ago and his head was throbbing like blood under a tourniquet, loud and heavy and horrible at the end of his neck. He was still wearing his jeans from the day before and was lying on top of the blanket rather than under it. His teeth felt practically carpeted, his skin was three sizes too small, and his eyes... he thought very, very hard about how much he actually needed his eyes. Could they be removed? Maybe replaced with ice cubes? That was reasonable. A completely sane, rational idea, posited by a sane, rational man at the very zenith of health.

He opened his eyes, immediately regretted it, and closed them again, eyelids creaking. (Okay, maybe it just felt like they’d creaked. They felt like they should creak, like two old doors hung loose on rusted hinges.)

A memory surfaced, bubbling to the top of his temporal lobe like a belch of rancid gas from the corpse of a whale gently decomposing on the ocean floor. A drinking game. Too many episodes of Heirs. (God, no. A drinking game was bad enough, but Heirs?) And there had been, what, a bottle of soju behind the couch...? The memory got hazier from there until it dissolved completely into darkness and nausea.

It was at this point that he very suddenly found the strength to bolt from his bed to the bathroom where he threw up as thoroughly as he did energetically. The next few hours were spent asleep on the cool tiled floor of the bathroom. This was a marked improvement.

When he woke up for the second time that day the light coming in through the high frosted window of his bathroom had that funny yellow quality like right before a rainstorm, and he felt... better, almost. If better was a way you could feel, lying on the bathroom floor in the middle of the afternoon with something mysterious and horrible staining your shirt, skin clammy where it had been pressed against the tile, face imprinted with the pebbled texture of the bath mat.

Sitting up his head was still spinning but his eyes were feeling almost normal and his stomach was no longer plotting the next French revolution (complete with guillotines) and he could think about standing, about showering, about going to work without wanting to fucking die. So he stood, and he showered, and he went to work, and he didn't die. Not even a little bit.

 

"What are these?"

Yong Ha looked over his shoulder and made a face. "Don't touch those."

"Are these -" Jae Shin ran a hand over the buds, down through the stems, until his fingers found purchase on a small rectangle of white card stock. "Did someone bring you flowers?" He squinted down at the curling writing on one side of the card. "'For Gu Yong Ha - however lovely, even these roses pale in comparison to your -'"

"Stop it," Yong Ha snapped, yanking the card out of Jae Shin's grip. He crumpled it up in his fist and threw it into the trash with unexpected vigor. "I told you not to touch them."

Never one to be told what to do, Jae Shin reached out and prodded one of the blooms. "Who's your secret admirer?"

Yong Ha jerked a thumb upward, eyes rolling as he gestured to an entire attic full of police officers. "Pick one. Your guess is as good as mine. My money's on the one who's been remembering my whipped cream trick in every private and semi-private moment."

"So all of them," Jae Shin said, grimacing at the flowers. "These look expensive."

"Maybe they pooled their funds," Yong Ha growled. He swallowed, turned slightly, glared at Jae Shin out of the corner of his eye. "Do you have to work in here? Don't you have anywhere else to be?"

"Thanks, in part, to you, my office is full of men thinking about how good you'd be at sucking dick," Jae Shin said, pulling a chair around to the butcher block island and trying like hell not to be one more man thinking the exact same thing, "and the grand re-opening is proving more popular than previously assumed. There's nowhere but here."

"They're not up there because of me," Yong Ha protested, an affronted hand flying to his chest in a display of theatrical horror. "They're up there because -"

"They're up there because you're so good at your job that my brother's murderer finally made a mistake big enough to catch," Jae Shin interrupted, his voice low and quiet. He flipped open the laptop and hit the power button, waiting for a second to hear the computer hum and sing itself awake before throwing Yong Ha a quick glance. "I'm not blaming you. I'm crediting you."

Yong Ha glared at him, but the look on his face betrayed a level of appeasement previously undetectable. "It sounded like blame."

"The part about sucking dick," Jae Shin conceded, sitting down in front of his laptop and stretching his arms out in front of him, " _that_ you can feel free to interpret as blame."

"Wow," Yong Ha said, rolling his eyes and turning toward the sink piled high with suds. "Thank you so much. And the answer is 'extremely,' by the way."

"The answer to what?"

"How good I'd be at sucking dick," Yong Ha said, thrusting his hands into the water. "The answer is 'extremely.’"

Jae Shin clenched his hands into fists and took a deep breath. Looked down at himself. “Oh,” he said, as calmly as he possibly could. “I’m sure the police would be very pleased to hear that.” Calm down. Calm the fuck down.

But Yong Ha was saying something. Jae Shin glanced up for half a second - Yong Ha was standing in front of the sink, his sleeves rolled up, drying his hands on a dish towel - and blinked. "Sorry, I was..." He waved a hand at his laptop. "It's not important. What did you say?"

"I said I used to wonder about you," Yong Ha said.

Jae Shin looked up for real this time. Yong Ha had thrown the dish towel up to drape over his shoulder. His head was cocked to the side, his arms were crossed over his chest, but he wasn't grinning that stupid smile of his. He was just looking at Jae Shin, not moving. "Me?" Jae Shin said. "What -"

Yong Ha shrugged with his right shoulder. "The whole girl thing. Are you straight? Are you gay? I guess I still don't know."

"I don't want to -" No. Start over. "I never wanted to... do anything," he stuttered out. "With anybody."

"You kissed me."

"What?"

"The night before Nonsan," Yong Ha clarified after a second. He closed his eyes, grinned, shook his head like he couldn’t quite believe that they were having this conversation. "You just said you never wanted to do anything with anyone. But you kissed me, the night before Nonsan. You can't tell me it didn't happen," he added, inclining his head in that way that meant Don't Argue With Me, Moon Jae Shin. "I remember. I was there."

"I was there too," Jae Shin managed, and looked back down at his laptop on the butcher block. He didn't take in any of the information, but he couldn't look Yong Ha in the eye. "I was drunk."

"Not that drunk," Yong Ha said, moving across the kitchen toward him, going around the island to the opposite wall. He slipped the dish towel from his shoulder and looked at it for a second before dropping it unceremoniously into the laundry basket. He glanced at Jae Shin out of the corner of his eye. "You remembered it well enough to fuck up our friendship for four years."

"Look," Jae Shin said, standing up, "I said I was -"

"We're okay now," Yong Ha said, sidestepping around him. "It's okay." He reached out and closed the laptop, the latch clicking into place as the hard drive spun down. "My point is: not that drunk."

"Pretty drunk," Jae Shin said, and didn't, didn't, didn't focus on the mere centimeters of space between him and Yong Ha.

"So what is it, then?" Yong Ha leaned against the counter, arms crossed over his chest. "Are you straight? Bi? Gay? Nothing at all?" He grinned now, but it wasn't his normal smile - it was curious, nervous, uncertain. "Except for me. But just when you're drunk."

"I'm working," Jae Shin said.

Yong Ha glanced down at the laptop on the counter. "Funny, looks like your laptop is closed. Are you just like... directly connected to the cloud? That's kind of impressive." He leaned forward. "So? Do you just not know?"

"I still don't know. I already said I don’t know." Jae Shin turned and rested his weight against the counter next to Yong Ha, stuffing his hands into his pockets. He felt like things were getting turned upside down again, like Yong Ha had his hands on a thread of conversation that he hadn't even spotted yet. (But since when was that new?) "Aren't you working? Isn't there something for you to bake?"

"Everything's done," Yong Ha said, shaking his head and pushing off from the counter, pivoting so that he was standing in front of Jae Shin. "It's just that I still have, mm..." He grabbed Jae Shin's wrist. Pulled Jae Shin's hand out of his pocket. Pulled his sleeve back and peered at the watch face. "... call it five, maybe ten minutes before my shift is officially over, and the last time I left early we unexpectedly ran out of mousse and Yoon Shik almost mutinied. So?"

"What?" Jae Shin twisted his hand in Yong Ha's grip, but couldn't quite bring himself to pull away entirely. "So what?"

"So that's your answer?" Yong Ha cocked his head to one side and bent forward slightly, backing Jae Shin up against the counter. "You don't know?"

"Do I have to be anything?" He swallowed. Pulled his wrist from Yong Ha's grip. Steadied himself. "This isn't funny. Maybe -"

"I'm not trying to be funny." Yong Ha stared at him for a second. "God, you really don't, do you?"

"I really don't what?"

Yong Ha shook his head, rolled his eyes upward. "You don't remember anything. I knew you were drunk, but jesus -"

That twist in his stomach was back with a vengeance. It was something like guilt, or shame, or fear, (or maybe all three at once), but he tamped it down and lurched forward, hand coming up (fingers curved, palm cupped like a bowl) to almost almost almost touch Yong Ha's face. "What? What don't I remember?"

Which was why when Kim Yoon Shik slammed open the swinging door Jae Shin and Yong Ha were inches away from one another and swinging closer still, two comets on a collision course. Jae Shin didn't have time to slow his hand. Yong Ha didn't have the time to pull back. So when Yoon Shik slammed open the door and stood in the opening with his mouth open as if to speak, eyes huge, muscles frozen -

"Jesus Christ," Jae Shin stuttered, snatching his hand back from Yong Ha's skin as though jerking away from a hot stove, trying to step away but bumping up against the counter instead. Yong Ha lost his balance slightly and staggered forward half a step, thudding into him. "Kim Yoon - what? What do you want?"

Yoon Shik's eyes darted back and forth between them. "Are you two... uh -"

"We're arguing," Yong Ha said, pressing a hand to Jae Shin's chest and pushing off him. "You wouldn't believe how drunk he got last night. He's an embarrassment."

"What do you want?" Jae Shin said again, trying not to look at Yong Ha's hand on his chest.

"Nothing," Yoon Shik stammered, making absolutely no effort to avoid staring at Yong Ha's hand resting on Jae Shin's chest. "I was just going to, uh... let you know that Seon Joon is here?"

Yong Ha blinked. Glanced down at his hand, dropped it back down to his side. "I guess my shift is over," he said, looking over his shoulder at the huge clock on the back wall. "Could've sworn I had more time. Your watch is slow, Shin. Good thing I did all my chores."

Jae Shin stepped forward. Opened his mouth. Tamped down that moment of fear. "I'll drive you home."

Yong Ha paused. "What?"

Jae Shin nodded at the row of hooks by the back door, at Yong Ha's coat, at Yong Ha's shoulder bag, at his own jacket hanging along with them. "Go get your stuff. I'll drive you home."

 

They got into the car in silence. They drove through the streets of Seoul in silence. Yong Ha sat in the passenger seat with his arm along the window and his chin in his hand, staring out at the darkening city and not saying anything, and Jae Shin could barely focus enough on where he was going to keep from getting into a wreck. The twist in his gut was too much, it was like it was trying to tell him something, and he almost opened his mouth a thousand times and asked a thousand stupid questions. Questions like: ‘what don’t I remember?’ And: ‘Why do you care who I like?’ And: ‘What do you mean, except for you - but only when I’m drunk?’

When he pulled up in front of his apartment he gripped the steering wheel like a life preserver and opened his mouth the thousand-and-first time and said the stupidest thing he could think of. "Have you always been the way you are now? All along, and you just never told me?"

Yong Ha looked at him, one hand on his seat belt buckle. "What? The way I am now? What do you mean?"

Jae Shin opened his mouth. Closed his mouth. Looked down at his hands, his fingers gripping the steering wheel. "What is it?" he said after a second, bouncing Yong Ha’s words right back him. Glanced back up. "Are you gay? Bi? Straight? Whatever you are, is that - is that the way you've always been? Have you always liked men, or was it -" he stuttered to a stop, but pressed on anyway "- was it just Jean-Baptiste?" He shook his head, laughed under his breath. "Maybe they just have to be French."

"They don't have to be French," Yong Ha said quickly, then hesitated. Seemed to think better of it. "Look, it's not -"

"So you've always liked men," Jae Shin said. Any other time, he wouldn't have pushed. He would have just given up, decided it wasn't worth the trouble, but right now he couldn't stop. His heartbeat whispered rhythmically in his ears and his gut twisted with adrenalin but he couldn't stop. He’d started (against his better judgment) and now he couldn’t stop. "You just never told me. You were wondering about me, but you never thought I might be wondering about you?"

"Were you?"

Jae Shin paused, then shrugged. "Not really. I thought you didn't," he said. "Like men, I mean."

That got him a grimace. "I did go home with a lot of girls, but -"

"No." Yong Ha hadn't buttoned his jacket in the right buttonholes and Jae Shin couldn't help but focus on it. It was incongruous, nonsensical. Had Yong Ha been that distracted? Since when did Yong Ha get that distracted? Somewhere in the static of his head he knew that it didn't matter, that Yong Ha would be out of the car in a minute anyway, but mostly he was thinking that this was the stupidest possible course he could take but hell if he could steer away. "The night before Nonsan." He looked up, looked Yong Ha in the eye. "You remember. We were drunk."

"Not that drunk," Yong Ha said, eyes guarded.

"Yeah," Jae Shin said. "And you froze up."

The atmosphere in the car changed - it had been uncertain, tense, but when he spoke the air seemed to fill up with electricity. "That's what you were talking about," Yong Ha said, staring at him for a second before screwing his eyes shut and shaking his head. "Jesus, that's what - look, you have to admit it was surprising, it's not like... I mean, you're my best friend, and - "

"You didn't act surprised at first," Jae Shin interrupted. (That's what he had been talking about? When had he talked about it? When had he ever, ever talked about it?) “You were -”

"I was surprised," Yong Ha insisted, leaning toward him. "I mean - I was half asleep, and pretty drunk, and... and anyway -"

"So if you were awake," Jae Shin said, "and sober. Eyes open.” He swallowed. Felt stupid. (But he always fucking felt stupid, how was this any fucking different?) “The man wouldn't have to be French?"

"Oh, ha ha," Yong Ha said, slumping a little. He rubbed a hand over his face but couldn't quite hide the look of relief (and disappointment, somehow) that washed over his expression. "That's very cute. No, he wouldn't have to be French. What about you?"

"Nothing at all," Jae Shin said.

"What?"

He shrugged. "You hit the nail on the head the other day. I'm nothing at all."

Yong Ha let out a long sighing breath as if he'd been holding it for a long time. "Except for me, right?" Grinned. Bapped Jae Shin on the arm. "But just when you're drunk."

Oh.

The memory of the night before started filtering in, slowly at first, in bits and pieces, but then flooding in all at once. The way Yong Ha had suddenly been so close. The look on his face. How cool Yong Ha’s skin had been under his hand. The way Yong Ha had moved under him. Arched his back. Curled a hand over his neck. Sighed against him.

Jae Shin looked at him. He looked at his hair, the way he'd let it get a little long so that it curled a little bit when it was raining. He looked at his glasses, thick rims hiding his face. He looked at his throat, at the lapels of his jacket, at the mismatched buttons, and he couldn't keep it tamped down anymore. He couldn't even quite remember why he'd kept it, all wrapped up and smothered like a secret at the bottom of a hole. The guilt and the fear and the acid in the back of his throat that had been hounding him for years seemed suddenly illusory, an old lie he'd been telling himself for way too long.

"Except for you," he said.

The look on Yong Ha's face froze in place, halfway between a grin and a laugh. "What?"

"What's that thing you always say?" Jae Shin reached up and over and pulled Yong Ha's glasses off his face. Swallowed his nerves. Wondered what the fuck he was doing. "We're a perfect match, or something like that?"

"Match made in heaven," Yong Ha corrected automatically. Swallowed. "What are you doing?"

Jae Shin looked down at the glasses in his hand. "Honestly? I have no idea."

"Did you mean that?"

"The perfect match thing?"

"Nothing at all," Yong Ha said. Watched Jae Shin's face. "Except for me."

Jae Shin opened his mouth for a second before thinking better of it and closing it again. Looked down at Yong Ha's glasses in his hand. Set them down carefully on the dashboard before looking up. "Are you awake?"

"Yes," Yong Ha said. Swallowed again, and looked skyward as if pondering the nature of reality. "I think so."

"Yeah," Jae Shin said. "Except for you."

He'd done stupid things in his life. A lot of really, really stupid things. His mother would probably argue that he'd done his fair share; his father would certainly argue that he'd shot past his fair share of stupid decisions years ago and was now hurtling through space with no sign of stopping. But this?

It was like he wasn't the one making the decision at all, it was just... the way things were. The way they had to be. The way they were always going to end up. Jae Shin unbuckled his seatbelt. Reached over. Slid his hand over the back of Yong Ha's neck. Leaned in, and (Yong Ha closed his eyes) kissed him carefully on the forehead. On his cheekbone. At the corner of his mouth.

Let him go.

"Sorry," Jae Shin said quietly. "Now you know." He sat back in his seat again. "You can leave if you want."

"Fffffwhat," Yong Ha hissed out. He opened his eyes and looked like he couldn't focus. Maybe he couldn't - his glasses were in front of him, on the dashboard. "What. What? Are you serious? Are you _serious_?"

"About what?"

"You just fucking -" Yong Ha touched his face with his fingertips, his breath quick and shallow. He looked distracted, disoriented. "You just fucking _kissed me_ , you idiot. What the fuck do you think I would be asking you about? The fucking _weather_? Are you serious?"

"Is there a right answer?"

"An honest one. Jesus, just fucking answer me, will you? Are you serious?"

Jae Shin grimaced. Rubbed a hand over his face. "Yes."

Yong Ha stilled. Closed his eyes. Brought one tight fist to his forehead as if to ground himself. "This is..." He trailed off. "This is a lot to take in. Are you sure you're serious? What does that even mean, 'except for me?'" He thumped his fist on his forehead a few times and sighed theatrically before thrusting his arm petulantly out toward Jae Shin. "I'm dreaming. Wake me up. Pinch me or something."

Jae Shin swatted Yong Ha's hand back, his face going hot. "Look, I said you could leave if -"

"You're an idiot," Yong Ha said, shooting Jae Shin a wide-eyed, incredulous glare. "I'm an idiot. Christ." He paused. Twisted his mouth. Steeled his resolve with such force that it was almost palpable. "You're so stupid." Yong Ha got up on his knees on the passenger seat, leaned over the arm rest between them. "God, just -"

And reached up with both hands. Cradled Jae Shin's jaw in his palms. Pulled his face up toward his own, and kissed him - just a little, at the corner of his mouth, then more. Gently, carefully, trying to go as slowly as he could while still moving forward.

"Oh," Jae Shin breathed, but Yong Ha wordlessly wrapped his hands around the back of his head. Knotted his fingers in his hair. Pulled him back in again.

Logically speaking, kissing was weird. Jae Shin had never really done it before, those few minutes before Nonsan notwithstanding - seen it in dramas, movies, but never (well, hardly ever) felt inclined to take part in the activity himself. Something about having someone else's tongue in his mouth just didn't seem to appeal to him on a hygiene level.

Illogically speaking, Yong Ha's tongue was in his mouth and it might have been the best thing that had happened to him in his entire life.

But then it was over and Yong Ha was pulling away. "What?" Jae Shin said, breathless, incapable, grasping. "What is it?"

"You should probably go back to work," Yong Ha said, face flushed.

"Work?" Jae Shin managed, his voice strangled. His head was full of smoke and stones and Yong Ha's hands were still on his arm, his chest, and a minute ago he'd been terrified and now he was - everything was different.

"God," Yong Ha groaned, putting his head in his hand, face twisting up with wry self-loathing. "This was a really bad idea. Everything's different now."

Everything was different now. Everything was different now.

"Is that bad?"

Yong Ha stilled. "What do you mean?"

His whole life he'd been afraid - afraid of the dark, afraid of being alone, afraid of losing himself, afraid of letting his brother down - so scared he barely ever did anything. He skipped class. He scraped by with the bare minimum. Who knew how long he'd been in love with Yong Ha? He'd figured it out the day after Christmas, but even then it had been vast and immeasurable like an ocean. If he had to guess, it had started...

No. He didn't have to guess. He'd been eighteen years old and it had been ten years and he was older than Young Shin had ever been. He'd just graduated high school and he was staring down the end of life as he knew it with adulthood hanging over him like a noose and the sun was setting outside his window and before he knew it he'd emptied a whole bottle of sleeping pills into the palm of his hand and he would have taken all of them, all at once, gone to sleep and never woken up again - except Yong Ha had called him on the phone and bitched him out and dragged him to the noraebang by his ear.

And that's when he'd known. He'd known exactly why he couldn't die, not just yet. There was still so much more time to spend with Yong Ha, (that damn kid), so much more shit to talk, so many more bars to go to, so many more things to complain about, so many more nights to drink and fall over and stand side by side at midnight on the subway platform with Yong Ha slowly falling asleep into him.

It hadn't been _love_  then, not as far as he'd known anyway. They'd been best friends. That's how best friends were. Yong Ha talked too much and that was all right because it meant Jae Shin barely had to talk at all, and anyway most of what he said was endlessly interesting. It hadn’t been love then, ten years ago in his bedroom with the sun going down outside his window and the pills in his hand. It had just been the only reason he’d had to stay alive.

"Don't be like me," Jae Shin said, staring down at the steering wheel. "I have to go back to work, but -"

"But what?"

"Just… just be here when I get back, all right?"

Yong Ha reached out and picked his glasses up off the dashboard, sliding them back onto his face. "I will be," he said, opening the door. Stepped out of the car. "When you come back-" But he hesitated then, hand on the edge of the door, staring down at his feet.

Hands tightening on the steering wheel, (stomach tightening under his skin), Jae Shin looked up. "Yeah?"

Yong Ha grinned. "I don't know. I just wanted to say it." Glanced up. "When you come back."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS CHAPTER NEARLY KILLED ME, WHY IS EMOTIONAL HONESTY SO DIFFICULT


	12. Sometimes Things Can Work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter: Moon Jae Shin can't figure out anything for the life of him; Gu Yong Ha takes a shower.

"Wait, so what did you see?"

Kim Yoon Shik shook his head, lips pressed tight together as he scrubbed down the steam wand with a damp rag. "I don't know," he said again. "I don't know. Maybe they were fighting?"

"They're always fighting," Seon Joon pressed. "You know what it looks like when they fight. It looks just like every single day in this place. What did you see?"

Yoon Shik stilled. Rolled his eyes heavenward in an expression of deep thought. Opened his mouth. "I don't -"

"If you say 'I don't know' again, I swear I'll -"

"I was going to say I don't know if I should say," Yoon Shik snapped. "It wasn't anything... big, I guess. They just looked like they were fighting. But really… really _close_ to each other."

The front door slammed open and Moon Jae Shin practically tumbled over the threshold, hands shoved deep into his coat pockets, face white, hair tousled from the wind. He didn't say anything, or look at them, or do anything but move like a ghost through the buzz of the shop until he hit the swinging door into the kitchen and vanished again like he'd never been there at all.

Yoon Shik and Seon Joon stared at the door for a second, swinging still with the momentum, then at each other. Seon Joon shrugged. Yoon Shik pressed his lips together in a straight line, nodded, and folded the damp rag decisively before setting it carefully down on the counter and following their boss into the kitchen.

When Yoon Shik pushed through the door Jae Shin was by the back door, shouldering distractedly out of his jacket. "Hey," Yoon Shik said. "You all right?"

Jae Shin's hand slowed as he hung his jacket up again. "Yeah," he said after a second, looking down at the floor. Then he was grinning, huge and stupid and unashamed, the kind of grin Yoon Shik had never once seen on his face. "I'm... I'm actually really all right."

It wasn't what Yoon Shik had been expecting, but at this point he didn't know what to expect anymore. "Were you two fighting?"

"We're always fighting," Jae Shin replied, the words coming out of him like a line he’d rehearsed a million times. Paused. Opened his mouth, taking in a quick breath as if he were going to say something more, but then didn't - closed his mouth again and shook his head.

"What? What is it?"

"I don't really know," Jae Shin said. "I guess..." He shrugged. "I guess I'm all right, that's all."

"Okay," Yoon Shik said slowly, taking a careful step backward, back toward the swinging door.

But Jae Shin stopped. Glanced up at him in a way that was almost... afraid? "Have you...?"

Yoon Shik looked at him over his shoulder, one palm against the door out to the bakery. "Have I what?"

"Have you ever liked somebody? But you know it's never going to work, so nothing ever happens. Is that a thing that happens?"

"Yeah," Yoon Shik said. His eyes flickered, and for a second the look on his face came close to flustered, but it was gone almost before it appeared. "Yeah. That's... that's a thing that happens."

"Sometimes it works," Jae Shin said. "I don't know if it works forever, but sometimes it... sometimes it works out, I guess."

 

Out in the bakery, Seon Joon leaned in close to Yoon Shik. "Well?"

"I don't know," Yoon Shik said for the hundredth time. He leaned away from Seon Joon, not meeting his eye, not looking up from his hands. "He just says he's all right."

Seon Joon's eyebrows knit together. "What about you? Are you all right?" He glanced at the swinging door. "Did he say something to you?"

"No," Yoon Shik said, but then bit his lips together, rolling his eyes upward as if to think hard about something. "Yes. Kind of." He grinned sheepishly and shrugged. "He's all right. That's all."

 

At three o'clock in the morning Jae Shin laid his hand on the doorknob of his apartment door. If there was any justice in the world Gu Yong Ha was asleep on the other side, sacked out on the couch like nothing had happened. But what if he wasn't? What if he'd panicked and left? Gone back to his parents’ house?

And worst of all - what if he was behind the front door of Jae Shin's house but still awake, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea in his hand, glasses on the wood in front of him, exhausted but awake despite it. What if. What if? What if he was awake? What was Jae Shin going to do if he opened the door and Yong Ha was awake on the other side, waiting for him to come home?

Come to think of it, maybe it wasn't the worst of the three options.

Jae Shin took a deep breath and turned the knob, the door opening under his hand. He kicked his shoes off in the dark of the entryway. Hung up his coat. Put his keys on their hook. Ran a hand through his hair. Swallowed his nerves. Wandered into the apartment.

The kitchen light was off. The kitchen table was empty. There were dirty dishes in the sink because if there was anything Yong Ha hated more than cooking on a stove top it was doing dishes. And in the living room -

He hadn't expected Yong Ha to still be there, not really. He'd decided in his bones that Yong Ha would have left by now, would have packed up everything and vanished just like every other time before. Why should this time be any different?

But this time was different and Yong Ha was still there, dead asleep on the couch, face pressed into the white leather, phone unplugged on the floor next to him, one arm hanging off the edge of the cushions. Jae Shin watched him breathe for a moment, for a second, for a minute maybe, and it wasn't until Yong Ha sighed in his sleep and rolled over that Jae Shin realized he'd been holding his breath.

Yong Ha hadn’t changed out of his clothes. His stocking feet stuck out at the bottom of the blanket, his t-shirt was the same one he’d been wearing last night. He was still wearing his glasses, kind of - they were askew and bent, crushed between his face and the couch cushions in a way that couldn’t possibly be comfortable - and who knew whether his jeans were still on under the blanket. Jae Shin moved to the side of the couch as silently as he could (which he prided himself on being pretty damn silent) and knelt down on one knee to very, very carefully work Yong Ha’s glasses off his face, fold the temples, set them on the floor. His phone was unplugged and it dinged at him forlornly when he moved to get up, so he took a minute to find Yong Ha’s charger and plug it in, setting it on the edge of the couch.

When he was done he stood up. Brushed himself off. Took a deep breath. Looked down - at the couch, at the blanket, at his best friend of sixteen damn years who was suddenly and unexpectedly far more complicated. Far more electric. Far more dangerous and worrying and exhilarating, a cross between a time bomb and a rollercoaster. Strange and beautiful and rude and perfect and terrifying.

Why was this time any different? What had gone differently? Why had he scared off Yong Ha every other damn time but this time... this time he'd stayed. What had he done differently?

Maybe... maybe in the morning he'd ask. If Yong Ha was still there, if he still hadn't left, if Jae Shin could screw up enough courage, then maybe... then maybe he'd ask him in the morning. What had he done differently?

If he could figure it out, he'd do it every day.

 

At six o'clock in the morning Yong Ha's phone alarm went off in his ear, jerking him awake into the cold, unforgiving world of morning before sunrise. "Shit," he moaned, slapping his hand down on his phone, trying to pick it up without much success. "Fuck. God _damn_ it."

He'd slept on Jae Shin's leather couch for four nights now and it was still comfortable in its own way, but his shoulder had started complaining yesterday morning and now the whimper had turned into more of a whine and - god - he could only imagine what it would be tomorrow. A full on whinge, probably.

In the bathroom the water was hot and the tile was cool and he stood under the showerhead with his eyes closed, trying to wake up enough to wash his hair. It was going to take a few minutes. A few hours. A year, maybe. God, why was he so tired? He felt almost drunk, the world shifting and spinning gently around him.

The bathroom door opened.

"What the fuck," Yong Ha yelped, and turned quickly to face the corner.

The spinning of the world altered into something not quite so gentle and everything that had happened the day before crashed into him like a bag full of wet sand dropped from a great height. He hadn't been able to sit still, he hadn't been able to go to sleep, he had twenty-four unsent texts to Jae Shin on his phone and each of them less articulate than the one before it. Most of them included the word ‘really’ at least twice, followed by a minimum of three question marks. At least seven of them prominently featured the phrase ‘you bastard.’

One of them, the last one, read only: _for how long?_ (He wasn't ready to send that one. He might never be ready to send that one.)

"Do you want coffee?" came Jae Shin's voice through the shower curtain, because of course it was Jae Shin. This was Jae Shin's shower, hidden behind Jae Shin's shower curtain, down the hall from Jae Shin's bedroom in Jae Shin's apartment. Of course it was Jae Shin.

Yong Ha looked down at himself and suddenly felt a lot more naked and a lot less asleep than he had a few seconds ago. This was the worst situation in the universe. Why? Why?

"Yeah," Yong Ha said, hoping to high heaven that Jae Shin would hear the gravel in his voice and assume it was the last vestiges of sleep in his throat, "coffee sounds really good. What are you doing up?"

"I got in really late. I didn't actually end up going to sleep."

"You still haven't slept? Jesus, Shin -"

"I'll sleep later," Jae Shin interrupted. "After you leave. Do you want breakfast or something? You never used to eat in the morning, but..."

Yong Ha rubbed a hand over his face, tried to slow his heartbeat, tried not to think about Jae Shin too much (just a meter away, on the other side of the thin shower curtain, within arm's reach). He'd woken up that morning in what seemed now almost like a state of amnesia; after last night it seemed impossible that he could forget the way Jae Shin (Jae Shin awake, Jae Shin sober, Jae Shin fully present and lucid and nervous) had kissed him for the first time, but he'd woken up with his head empty of everything but exhaustion and the ache in his shoulder. "I still don't," Yong Ha said. "I'm surprised you remembered. Just coffee is fine, thanks."

Jae Shin's shadow on the curtain moved and faded as he stepped away, and the bathroom door opened. Then: "Did you sleep okay?"

"My shoulder's kinda starting to hurt. I think the couch is too soft."

"You can sleep in my bed tonight." There was a moment of silence, and Yong Ha could almost hear Jae Shin reeling under the implications of what he'd just said. "I mean - you can take the bed, and - and I'll sleep on the couch."

"Right," Yong Ha managed. What the hell? What the hell? Anybody else and they would have fucked already, (he would have dragged him inside the apartment and taken all of his clothes and done every goddamn thing he’d ever accidentally dreamed about when things got really difficult, when it got so goddamn difficult to look at Jae Shin standing next to him being beautiful and messed up and untouchable), but with Jae Shin he was a nervous kid all over again, tripping over himself and scared of saying the wrong thing and being so, so, so careful. Wake up, Yong Ha. Wake the fuck up. "Either way is fine with me."

Jae Shin didn't respond. Was that the wrong thing to say? Had he already left? No, the door hadn't closed yet. He wouldn't leave the door open, right?

"It's not like we haven't slept in the same bed before," came Jae Shin's voice, and the door closed.

Yong Ha screwed his eyes shut tight and slapped himself in the face a few times. "What the fuck, Yong Ha," he hissed to himself. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

 

"Where's the coffee?"

Jae Shin turned his head. "It's still going. Give it a minute."

Yong Ha came up behind him and peered over his shoulder. "Jesus, is that a coffee maker? Where's the instant stuff?"

Jae Shin glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. "Seriously? You think my mother would put up with me drinking instant?"

Yong Ha shrugged and moved past him to pull two coffee cups out of the cupboard to the left of the sink. "She drinks instant at my mom's house."

"She does? Seriously?" Jae Shin's eyes narrowed. "Wait - our moms hang out?"

"Not when we're around," Yong Ha conceded, setting the coffee cups down on the counter and beginning to rummage around for sugar. Jae Shin didn't really keep any in his kitchen, but Yong Ha had gotten some anyway because To Hell With Black Coffee, he'd said. "But I can always tell if Hae Sook's been by. Your mom wears this particular kind of perfume," he said, scooping one, two, three spoonfuls of sugar into one of the mugs. "Way too expensive for my mom, a little too mature for any of my sisters-in-law, and anyway I know it from all the time I used to spend at your house."

"So are you a detective now?"

"A regular Sherlock Holmes." Yong Ha leaned back against the counter and thoughtfully sucked the extra sugar from his spoon. (Had he always done that? Six years ago Jae Shin couldn’t have recounted anything about Yong Ha’s morning coffee routine, but now he watched Yong Ha stick the bowl of his spoon between his lips and found his head suddenly full of cotton, knowing without a shadow of a doubt that he’d remember that visual for a very, very long time.) "So does your mom really hate the instant stuff, then?"

"Can't stand it," Jae Shin replied after a second, pulling the carafe out of the coffee maker and filling up both mugs. "She mostly drinks tea, anyway. If she drinks coffee at all it has to be premium Kona or she acts like she's going into anaphylactic shock."

"She hates instant coffee that much," Yong Ha said, picking up his coffee cup, "but when she spends time with my mom - in secret, I might add - she drinks it without complaint. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Maybe it runs in the family."

"Don't be weird." Jae Shin glared at him. "What do you mean, it runs in the family? What runs in the family?"

"The gay," Yong Ha hissed delightedly into his coffee. "You think your mom might have a crush on my mom?"

"Absolutely not," Jae Shin stuttered, nearly dropping his coffee cup. "What are you - I don't - you think I'm gay?"

The fridge opened under Yong Ha's hand and he leaned over to dig out some cream. "I still don't know what you are. A mystery wrapped in an enigma, maybe, doused in soju and lightly pickled in an earthenware jar." He pulled out a cardboard container and peered at it nearsightedly. "How old is this? I can't read the expiration date."

"I only bought it three days ago. It's fine." Jae Shin set his coffee cup down on the counter. "So if you don't think that I'm gay -" His head was buzzing. He wasn't going to have many more chances to ask, and he had to ask. "That's not what I mean. I mean... what was different?"

Yong Ha splashed a truly horrendous amount of cream into his coffee. It wasn't a latte by any stretch of the imagination but he seemed bound and determined to make it one. "What?"

"Yesterday," Jae Shin said, feeling for all the world as though he was hefting the shovel that would dig his own grave. "You didn't leave. I was expecting you to leave."

There was a moment of quiet (half a second maybe) and Yong Ha stood still, cream held suspended over his coffee. He looked like he was thinking, or maybe unable to think. "Why would I leave?"

"I'm really good at fucking things up with you. I guess that I... expected to have done it again. Without realizing." Jae Shin glanced up again. "What was different this time? What didn't I fuck up?"

Yong Ha groaned and rolled his eyes upward, leaned back against the counter, stretched his arms out behind him to prop himself up on his hands. "You were honest with me," he said after a second. Moved to meet Jae Shin's eye and shot him a smile that was almost apologetic. "And you asked me to stay. You're really good at acting like you don't want me around, you know that?"

"What?" Jae Shin blinked. "Really?"

"Yeah, really."

Jae Shin opened his mouth. He closed his mouth. He narrowed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair, over the back of his head, down his neck. "What can I... what can I do to not act like that?"

Yong Ha's hair was still damp from the shower, his thin t-shirt clinging to his skin, the muscles in his arms straining against his sleeves. He hadn't put on his glasses yet. He was just Gu Yong Ha, awake and clean and slightly flushed. Jae Shin had spent years not taking risks, being angry, being guilty, being careful, and now Gu Yong Ha was in his kitchen looking at him like he was expecting something and -

Yong Ha shrugged, and flashed him that lopsided smile that showed up when any given situation was starting to get interesting. "Kissing me was a good start."

\- and if he could figure out what had kept Yong Ha from leaving, he'd do it every day.

So Jae Shin reached up, curved a hand over the back of Yong Ha's neck, leaned in, and kissed him. (This... this he could do every day.)

It was the old fear that expected Yong Ha to pull away, to shake his head, to ask him what he was thinking, but instead - instead Yong Ha pushed into him and wrapped his arms around his neck and pulled him in, making a noise in the back of his throat as though he were waking up from a deep sleep for the very first time. The sound of it, the feel of it against his mouth, the way Yong Ha moved against him and sighed like he couldn't quite catch his breath -

"I want you around," Jae Shin said. Or maybe he didn't say it, maybe he just thought it so loud that it hummed out of his head and into the air around them. Maybe his heartbeat said it as it raced and jumped. Maybe he didn't have to say it. Maybe kissing Yong Ha was enough.

"Okay," Yong Ha said. "I believe you."


	13. Discretion is Advised

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter: Moon Jae Shin is pretty bad at human interaction; Gu Yong Ha knows where the cameras are; Kim Yoon Shik gets caught.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three day weekends mean extra updates! And hangovers, if you're me.

Just after four o'clock on the second afternoon after the reopening, the door opened and the old brass bell clonked out its familiarly horrible tone and Moon Jae Shin stepped over the threshold. Scuffed the mud off his shoes. Hung his coat next to the door.

After Yong Ha had left he'd laid on his back on his bed, staring at the ceiling and willing his heart rate to slow without much success. It seemed like he'd never get to sleep again; his head was too full electricity, too full of heat, too full of confusion and fear and _exhilaration_ to calm down enough to sleep. It was stupid to wonder whether or not this was a good idea - Jae Shin knew in his bones that he'd never once had a better idea - but there were so many variables. Too many variables. Too many problems.

The last thing he remembered thinking before falling to sleep (the kind of sleep that hits you when you're so high on nerves that your body forces a restart to keep you from overheating from the inside out) was _fuck it_.

When he woke up the light was arcing low through the window. The alarm clock next to his bed read three o'clock. He was still in the clothes he'd worn yesterday (when he'd driven Yong Ha home, when he'd come home at three o'clock in the morning and Yong Ha had asleep on the couch, when he kissed Yong Ha in the kitchen that morning) and when he sat up the only thing he could think was _fuck it_.

Just after four o'clock on the second afternoon after the reopening, the door opened and the old brass bell clonked out its familiarly horrible tone and Moon Jae Shin stepped over the threshold. Scuffed the mud off his shoes. Hung his coat next to the door.

He'd managed to hold onto a fraction of the bravado he'd woken up with an hour ago and even now, faced with a bakery full of people and Yoon Shik at the front counter and the swinging door to the kitchen, he felt... almost good. (How long had it been since the last time he'd felt this good? Had he ever felt this good? He couldn't remember.)

A hand on his arm, and when he looked it was one of the cops he'd met the week before, wearing plainclothes this time. "Do you have a minute?" the man said, and smiled disarmingly.

You couldn't be arrested for kissing a man, right? For a second he wondered, mind racing. But no, you couldn't possibly be arrested for kissing a man - if you could Yong Ha would have had a rap sheet a mile long - but still for a second the fear twisted in his gut. "Yes," Jae Shin said.

Outside the bakery the cop stood next to Jae Shin on the sidewalk and pulled a cigarette out of a pack that had seen better days, holding it in his lips while he dug in his jacket for a lighter. "Want one?"

"No." Jae Shin dug his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He hadn't had a cigarette since the first night Yong Ha spent in his apartment and of course he wanted one, of course he wanted a damn cigarette, but Yong Ha had a nose like a dog and the fastidiousness of a cat and hell if Jae Shin would intentionally do something, anything, that would make Yong Ha want to keep his distance. "What did you need to talk to me about?"

The cop took a long drag on his cigarette thoughtfully, the end flaring and ashing in the low afternoon light. "How well," he said after a second, exhaling smoke around the filter, "do you know your employees?"

Oh shit. Shit. Shit. Fucking goddamn _shit_. (You couldn't be arrested for kissing a man. Right? _Right_?) "Reasonably," Jae Shin said, and looked at the pavement under their feet. "Why?"

"It's none of my business," the cop said, "but you might want to consider making a policy about... romance between coworkers."

Shit. Shit! "Excuse me?"

"You know we have cameras all over your bakery, right?" The man flipped ash from the tip of the cigarette. "Yesterday we, ah... caught a bit more than we bargained for."

Jae Shin's head spun. They hadn't kissed in the bakery, right? They'd kissed in the car, and even then it had been far from the bakery, parked outside his apartment. Was the cop talking about the conversation they'd had in the kitchen? When Yong Ha had pinned him down and leaned in close and then fallen in against him when Yoon Shik had opened the door unexpectedly? "Oh," Jae Shin said. "Um."

"Like I said, it's none of my business -"

"Right." Jae Shin cleared his throat. He had to know. He had to. "What did you... um... what exactly did you see?"

The cop grimaced. "Your barista and the other one - what's his name - out in the alleyway behind the bakery.” He hesitated. “Kissing."

If it were possible for blood to freeze solid from shock, Jae Shin's would have done so then. "What?"

"Not a lot," the cop said quickly, holding up a hand. "I mean, maybe they weren't kissing, the angle was - I don't think you should fire them," he finished stupidly, suddenly going pale.

"I'm not going to fire them," Jae Shin said. Suddenly he felt very strongly like he needed to sit down. Or lie down. Or maybe just go back to bed and never, ever get up. "You saw them kissing? Really? Yoon Shik and Seon Joon? Are you sure it was them? Both of them? Together? At the same time?"

"Just because a man kisses another man -"

"I'm not worried about that at all in any way whatsoever," Jae Shin said, shaking his head, waving a hand, "believe me. But they can barely stand each other. They're bickering constantly. Seon Joon is bossy and clueless and Yoon Shik is stubborn and rude, and -"

Yong Ha was bossy and he was stubborn, Yong Ha was rude and he was clueless. They bickered all the time, every minute, every second. They argued for the sake of argument, for the fun of it, to get under each other's skin, to test boundaries and push each other. To an outside observer…? To an outside observer it might seem like they could barely stand each other.

"Oh," Jae Shin said.

"That's how my wife and I were," the cop said, shrugging. "Finally my best friend just threatened to set me on fire if I didn't ask her out. That was five years ago. We have two kids now."

"Oh," Jae Shin said again.

"But just..." The cop dropped his cigarette on the pavement, crushing the ember under his heel. "... you might want to tell them to keep it on the down low. Not everyone is as understanding." He paused at the front door, his hand on the door knob. "My younger brother is, ah, like that." Grinned at Jae Shin over his shoulder. "Took me a long time to get used to, but it's family, you know?"

"Yeah," Jae Shin said to the space where the cop had been. "Family."

 

The door swung open and Yong Ha didn't even have to look up from the sink to know exactly who it was. (There was no mistaking the hush of it - when Yoon Shik opened the door he opened it like Yong Ha's mother, all clatter and bang and explosive force; when Seon Joon opened the door he charged through it authoritatively almost as though he were on a mission from god; when Moon Jae Shin opened the swinging kitchen door it was with the pads of his fingertips, his joints moving and flexing to account for the creak in the hinges, and just being able to hear him at all betrayed just how distracted he was.) "Did you sleep?" he said.

"Eventually," came Jae Shin's voice from behind him. "Hey, are you...?"

"Am I what?" Somewhere underneath the haze in the water was the plug, and Yong Ha swished his hands through the suds until he found it.

"Are you done? Here, I mean. I think I... I need to talk to you about something."

Ah. There it was. Part of him had been waiting for it, but he'd been hoping it would take its time coming around - of course Jae Shin would back out. Of course. He'd said he was serious the day before, in the car. But things change. Yong Ha nudged his glasses up his nose with the back of his wrist and turned on his heel to face Jae Shin, reaching for a towel to dry his hands. "What do you need to -"

"Not here," Jae Shin said quickly, darting forward and reaching out to take Yong Ha carefully by the elbow. "Are you done with everything? Everything I can't finish up for you later, anyway?"

"Yeah," Yong Ha said, staring at him. The look on his face wasn't what he'd expected to see when he'd turned around. "Are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Are you hungry?" Jae Shin's hand tightened slightly on his elbow. "Anything you want, I'll get it. Let's just leave so we can talk, all right?"

"Why can't we talk here?"

"Just get your coat, all right?" Jae Shin glanced up at the ceiling like a haunted man. "I'll explain once we're outside."

It took three minutes to dry his hands, take off his chef coat, dump all the towels and dish rags and other laundry into the hamper, get his coat, grab his bag, but it felt like a year because of how much Jae Shin was crowding him - getting in his way, getting under his feet, agitated and distracted and frenetic in a way that Yong Ha hadn't seen in a really, really long time. (Was it high school? College maybe? He'd been like this the first time he'd walked in on Yong Ha making out with a girl in their dorm room, antsy and nervous and weirdly shamefaced and apologetic, but...)

Out on the back step Jae Shin closed the door to the kitchen and leaned against it with his eyes closed, one hand over his heart, breath slightly uneven.

Yong Ha glared at him. "What the hell was that?"

"There are cameras," Jae Shin said, opening his eyes, "everywhere. In the shop, outside in the street, in the kitchen -"

"Not in the kitchen," Yong Ha said. He stuck his hands in his coat pockets. "Trust me."

Jae Shin gawked at him. "What?"

"There aren't any cameras in the kitchen." Yong Ha shrugged. "You don't need to worry about that. Out here, though..."

"How do you know?"

Yong Ha turned on his heel and shook his head, heading toward Jae Shin's car. "You think I just went upstairs last week to flirt with a bunch of cops? Please. Like any of them are my type. I was checking out the surveillance angles, Shin. The kitchen's clean." He looked at Jae Shin over his shoulder and grinned. "Would I have talked to you about how good I was at sucking dick if I knew I was being recorded?"

Jae Shin glared at him, but it was a mixture of irritation and grudging admiration that was about as close to pride as Yong Ha was going to get out of him. "Yes." He seemed to think about this for a second. "You might be even more likely to if you knew you were being recorded."

"What did you need to talk to me about?"

That haunted look came over Jae Shin's face again and he stepped forward, his hand reaching for Yong Ha's elbow again to steer him toward the car. "You said there were cameras out here. What do you want to eat?"

 

The restaurant was busy and humming and mercifully, mercifully dark, each table tucked away in its own individual booth like a secret. They’d driven in silence, walked from the parking spot to the restaurant in silence, exchanged only enough words at the host stand to figure out what they were doing. Yong Ha had sat down across from him in the booth and ordered lemon soju (lemon soju, lemon soju, he always ordered lemon soju) and then sat back against the back of the booth and stayed quiet.

Moon Jae Shin sat hunched over the table like a man facing his execution, chewing on his bottom lip and tapping the table arrhythmically with the tips of his first and middle fingers as he stared into the void. The lemon soju in the carafe between them rippled slightly every time his fingers hit the table top and he couldn’t help but focus on it. He needed to talk to Yong Ha about his conversation with that cop, needed to talk to him about how similar they were to Seon Joon and Yoon Shik, needed to talk to him about how what the hell what the hell what the _hell_ why was everyone in the damn bakery gay and in love with each other? Was it some kind of sick, cosmic joke? Except he couldn’t stop thinking about the damn bartender at Hive, how he’d said that everyone was looking for Yong Ha but he never stuck with anyone for long.

Jae Shin needed to talk to Yong Ha, sure, but mostly he needed not to fuck it up.

Yong Ha leaned over the table. "You shouldn't stoop over like that," he whispered conspiratorially behind his hand. "It's bad for your back, and my physical therapist has a waiting list."

Jae Shin came back to himself in time to throw Yong Ha a poisonous glare. “Ha ha. Thanks. I’m thinking.”

“I gathered that.” Yong Ha sighed, groaned dramatically, reached forward and poured soju for both of them. He did it carefully, tongue poking out at the corner of his mouth, as if intent not to waste a single drop. “What did you need to talk to me about?”

A hundred things, a thousand things, a million. Jae Shin rubbed his thumb over his lower lip and sat back against the booth. Crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you think that -”

But instead Yong Ha fell forward slightly, catching himself on the table with a hand, and said: “Are you breaking up with me?”

“What?” Jae Shin said.

“Look,” Yong Ha said, holding out a hand and flashing one of those chipper grins he put on when he was trying to weasel out of getting beat up behind the cafeteria (one Jae Shin had never ever ever imagined he’d see pointed in his direction), “I’ve been here before. It’s okay. Sometimes straight guys need to figure stuff out.” The grin faltered. “Just…”

“No!” Jae Shin shot to his feet - or would have, anyway, had the booth had room for him to do so. As it was he just stood up halfway and banged his head _hard_ on the lamp hanging over them - "Fuck!" - and sat down again, one hand held tight over the crown of his head. “What are you… why… do you really -”

"So you're not, then." Yong Ha leaned back and grinned - but it was sincere this time, nothing like the look he’d had on his face seconds before. "That's a relief. I really thought you were. What were you going to say?"

His head hurt like hell but he barely cared. “Why the _hell_ would you think that?”

Yong Ha wrinkled his nose and scratched at his hairline thoughtfully. "You know, I keep forgetting how inexperienced you are. Look -" he leaned forward "- when two people are, uh, doing whatever it is that we're doing, coming up suddenly and saying 'we need to talk' isn't usually something that bodes well. It's not important, we'll talk about it more later or something. What were you going to say? Do I think that what?" He sighed and leaned back again, tipping his head back to look at the ceiling. "Would it really count as breaking up at this point, though? Maybe more like… cutting things off, or ending it before it starts. Whatever ‘it’ is."

"I'm not -" He felt like he was going crazy. He hadn’t even known how he wanted the conversation to go but even so he knew that this was absolutely not how he wanted it to go at all. "I'm not breaking up with you, or - or whatever. I said I was serious, didn't I? Do you really think I would lie about that?"

"Maybe," Yong Ha hazarded, shrugging with one shoulder. "You might not have thought it was a lie at the time. Sometimes stuff happens.” He groaned. “Am I going to have to keep holding your hand through basic human interactions or are you going to tell me what's got you all freaked out? What the hell did you want to talk to me about?"

"The cameras," Jae Shin managed. "One of the cops, uh... he saw something."

Yong Ha's face changed, going from irritation to intent curiosity in one smooth transition. "What? What did he see?" His narrowed his eyes. "Is that why you were so freaked out about cameras in the kitchen? Did you think they could see us?"

"Lee Seon Joon," Jae Shin said, sidestepping the question, "and Kim Yoon Shik. Um. They were kissing."

"And?"

"And?" For a second he was flummoxed, speechless, lost and confused. "And nothing! There's no 'and'! Isn't that weird enough on its own?"

"Wellll," Yong Ha allowed, tipping his head to one side and patting his mouth thoughtfully with one hand, "I'll definitely admit I'm surprised that they hadn't been caught already, but -"

"Already?!"

"Remember last October when we thought Seon Joon was Yoon Shik's ex-boyfriend?"

"You were the one who -"

"Don't try to lie to me," Yong Ha interrupted, waving a hand dismissively. "It won't work. But come on, even you saw something there. You think I wouldn't have known about it? Me? Come on -"

"Yeah, yeah," Jae Shin cut in, head reeling. "You're Gu Yong Ha. I get it."

Yong Ha smiled - lopsided and quiet - and looked down at the glass of lemon soju he held in loose fingers. "I don't think I'm ever going to get sick of that."

"Get sick of what?"

"Eh," Yong Ha said, "pick one. They'd all work. You admitting I'm right. You saying my name." He made a face. "That sounds gross. You know what I mean, right? Ugh."

Jae Shin slid down in his seat, feeling the skin on his neck heat up, feeling suddenly incalculably grateful for the dim lighting in the restaurant. He reached out and nudged Yong Ha lightly on the ankle with the toe of his shoe. "Sorry about that. The not saying your name thing."

Maybe the gratitude was undeserved, because the flush that crept over Yong Ha's face was obvious and unmistakable and that had to mean that his blush was just as easy to see. But maybe he didn't care, because the flush that crept over Yong Ha's face was obvious and unmistakable and he was there to see it.

"Don't worry," Yong Ha said, grinning at him. "I'll come up with a way you can make it up to me."

 

“I can’t believe you thought I was breaking up with you,” Jae Shin was saying.

“Not breaking up,” Yong Ha mumbled contentedly, almost half asleep. “I don’t know what I meant.”

They were in Jae Shin’s car and the sun had gone down and Yong Ha was - okay, he’d had more than half of the lemon soju (fine, way more than half of the first bottle and then he’d ordered a second while Jae Shin glowered at him from the other side of the table) so he was a little drunk. Maybe more than a little, but certainly not a lot, and the early April evening still had just a little bit of chill in it so he’d turned the absolutely fucking magical seat warmers in Jae Shin’s car all the way up to 4 (well, first he’d turned them up to 5 but Jae Shin had turned them down again and then threatened to revoke his seat warmer privileges entirely) and then had proceeded to spend the entire car ride trying not very hard at all not to fall asleep and drool all over the upholstery.

“Ending things,” Jae Shin said, “breaking up, whatever. Either way, I can’t believe you really thought -”

“Jae Shin.”

“Yeah?”

Yong Ha gave him a long, blank-faced look. “We need to talk.”

“What? What do you need to talk about?” Jae Shin gripped the steering wheel tight and stared straight forward through the windshield. “Is it bad? Can it wait until I’m not driving? No, if it’s bad just tell me now. I’ll be fine.”

“We need to talk about how you’re bad at communication,” Yong Ha said.

“Hey, you -”

Yong Ha grinned and shook his head. “And feelings. And human interaction. Idiot, you came up to me, said you needed to talk, and refused to say anything until we were away from the bakery. Of course I thought something was up.”

“Okay,” Jae Shin conceded after a second. Hesitated. “Okay. I can see how that could potentially be misunderstood, but -”

“Potentially?”

“- But just this morning I said I wanted you around,” Jae Shin persisted. “Why would I do a complete 180 in less than twelve hours?”

“You hadn’t slept for a whole day when you said that.”

“Fine, look at it this way -” Jae Shin waved one hand wide over the dashboard in an open-palmed gesture of frustration “- I picked you up at work, bought you dinner, and now I’m driving you home.” He hesitated. “Which is also my home. I don’t know, this is getting weird.”

“So are you trying to tell me that was a date? Have to admit, Shin, you never struck me as the type to put out this early.” Yong Ha leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes (he’d always dreamed that someday he’d date someone with seat warmers in their car, all the better if they also bought him too much lemon soju while only complaining a little bit) but the sound that Jae Shin made in response to that - something like an upsettingly organic cross between an irritated cat and a broken garbage disposal - made him open them again. “What? Are you dying? Do you need me to take the wheel?”

“I’m not dying,” Jae Shin said. Or choked out, maybe. Coughed? Yong Ha wasn’t sure if Jae Shin was still breathing, to be honest. “I don’t know if that was a date. Don’t you need to… ask someone out or something? I’ve never been on a date. Was that a date?”

“Calm down, I’m just messing with you.” Yong Ha looked out the window. “Isn’t that the turn you usually take to get home?”

“Fuck.”

“Jesus Christ, don’t just pull a u turn in the middle of the fucking street!” Yong Ha couldn’t help but reach out and hold onto Jae Shin’s arm, Jae Shin’s shoulder in a futile attempt at retaining some modicum of safety. He closed his eyes shut tight and felt sick. “This is illegal!”

“Yong Ha, I don’t need you to tell me how to drive.”

“Apparently you do! You failed your driving test three times! If I die I’m blaming you!”

“Let go of my arm, you’re fine.” Jae Shin wiggled his arm a little to dislodge Yong Ha, but it didn’t work. “Are you okay?”

“I’m going to throw up.” Yong Ha picked his head up and shot Jae Shin the sharpest glare he could muster. “I’m taking your bed.”

“I already told you that you could sleep in the bed.” Jae Shin hesitated a second, slowing to a stop at the corner with his blinker clicking on and off. “Just don’t throw up in it, please.”

Yong Ha reached up and clung desperately to the handle over the door and wished fervently that they were already parked in front of Jae Shin’s apartment. “How many times have you thrown up in my bed?”

“Lately?”

“Oh, shut up.”

“We’re here,” Jae Shin said. “You can open your eyes.”

“I’m not convinced.” But he opened his eyes anyway.

The engine was still running, the headlights were still glowing gold on the street in front of them, the hazard lights were blinking on and off, and Jae Shin was leaning over the arm rest toward him with one hand cautiously outstretched. The look on his face was half wry amusement (that mocking look of disbelief and contentment that he lived for sometimes, some days) and half concern. It was the kind of look that Yong Ha had seen a hundred times, a thousand times, a million, and every time he’d wanted to reach out and kiss it off of him, taste it, absorb whatever it was in Jae Shin that could be so full of affection and attention and care and every time he’d known that he couldn’t. Every time. Every time.

“Are you okay?” Jae Shin said, and Yong Ha had seen that look on his face a hundred times, a thousand times, a million - but this time he reached out. Laid a hand on Jae Shin’s arm.

“Yeah,” Yong Ha said, feeling just a little bit breathless. “I think I’m all right.”

“You’re so dramatic.” Jae Shin grinned at him, the concern in his face fading into the background a little. “All that over a u turn.”

“Me? I’m the dramatic one? You’re the one who missed the turn into your own neighborhood just because I asked you if that was a date.”

“It wasn’t,” Jae Shin said, suddenly serious - and then immediately looked like the only thing he wanted in the whole world was to bite off his own tongue. “I mean - it can’t have been a date, because - it wasn’t right,” he managed. He ran a hand over his face. “That was talking about business. It wasn’t a date.”

“So it wasn’t a date,” Yong Ha said, rolling his eyes, “because it wasn’t romantic?”

“Yeah,” Jae Shin said, looking at him like he’d just discovered the god particle at the bottom of a pile of laundry.

Despite everything he still expected Jae Shin to pull away when he moved forward. Expected Jae Shin to shake him off, shrug him off like he had every other time. But when Yong Ha leaned in toward him Jae Shin didn’t jerk back, didn’t stretch out and away. “You’re an idiot,” Yong Ha said, and kissed him.

It wasn’t desperate like the day before, wasn’t slow and sleepy like that morning, but still when they broke away Yong Ha found himself pressing one hand to his heart like he was trying to keep it from beating right out of his chest. (That was physically impossible, right? Your heart couldn’t actually beat through your actual chest. He knew it couldn’t, but still his heart was giving him a run for his money.) “Do you have to go back to work?”

Jae Shin’s breath was coming quick and he stared at him for a second, confusion playing over his face, before glancing at the clock on the dash. “It’s seven thirty,” he said distractedly, “Lee Seon Joon goes home at ten, so -”

“So you don’t,” Yong Ha said flatly. “You don’t absolutely have to be back at work for another two and a half hours.”

“You’re drunk.”

“Not that drunk.” Yong Ha reached out and slipped two fingers between the plackets of Jae Shin’s oxford, tugging on it very slightly. “Just enough to be a little bit stupid. Not enough that my decision-making process is significantly affected. It takes a lot more alcohol for me to be truly stupid. I mean - hell, how many times have we gotten drunk together, and I’ve never -” He stuttered to a stop. “Okay, maybe I’m a little bit stupid. But just a little. A tiny bit.”

“Yong Ha -”

“Come in. Please, just… just come in.”

When Yong Ha looked at him like that (pupils dilated, cheeks flushed, lips just slightly parted, skin pale in the dark and the quiet and the golden light of the headlights beaming off of the pavement outside of the car) Jae Shin didn’t quite know how to react. For just a fraction of a second his lungs stopped working properly, his heart stuttered. There was a part of him, heavy and compact like a knot in a plank, that worried worried worried about Yong Ha not really meaning it. What had that damn bartender said? Yong Ha never stuck with anyone for more than a month. A week, maybe two.

So he had at least thirteen days. Right? Thirteen days.

“Okay,” Jae Shin said. “Just for a few minutes. I really actually have work to do.”

“Yeah,” Yong Ha said, opening the door. “I know.”

 

“I can make you some tea,” Jae Shin was saying, kicking his shoes off in the entryway. “You had all that soju, you might have a headache tomorrow.”

“Says the man who spent four hours asleep on the floor of his bathroom yesterday.”

“Right, so I speak with the voice of experience.” Jae Shin brushed past him on his way to the kitchen. “Do you want tea?”

What had he been expecting? Jae Shin was so inexperienced it was almost laughable (not that Yong Ha would ever laugh at him for it, knowing what he knew now - even if he didn’t know what he knew now, he hoped he wouldn’t laugh) so for all Yong Ha knew Jae Shin thought that tea was the obvious next step in a brand new whatever-this-was. “Not really,” Yong Ha said out loud, following Jae Shin into the kitchen. He leaned against the counter and ran a hand over his face, trying to breathe, trying to slow down his heart. If it were anyone else they would have fucked three times by now but this was Jae Shin. It was Jae Shin, rude and horrible and short-tempered and fragile and messed up and perfect. “I’m not -”

“I like you.” Jae Shin was standing in front of the sink, muscles tense. “You know that?”

“I…” Yong Ha stared at him. Swallowed. He’d never expected to be having this conversation. He didn’t have any idea what to say. “I’ve been picking that up, yeah. What -”

“And I don’t really know how to do this. You know that.”

“Tell me about it.” Yong Ha crossed his arms over his chest. “Today’s stunt was a perfect example. God, what were you _thinking_?”

“I was thinking that I had to talk to you.” Jae Shin pushed off of the counter and came toward him. Leaned in close. Put one hand on the counter next to Yong Ha’s waist. “That’s pretty much it.”

“Right.”

“Why did you ask me to come inside?”

Yong Ha put both hands on Jae Shin’s chest - to steady himself, to give himself something to focus on other then Jae Shin’s mouth right in front of him, to just be close to Jae Shin - and took a deep breath. Grinned. “I just wanted to spend more time with my favorite jerk. Is that so wrong?” But Jae Shin was right there, he was right there, he was right there and Yong Ha had just kissed him a few minutes ago, he could still taste him, and to hell with his goddamn nerves -

“You have to be clear with me,” Jae Shin said. “Or I’m going to get confused.”

\- so Yong Ha leaned forward and kissed him again. He tried to keep it slow, tried to keep it easy and careful and not too deep, but he couldn’t quite manage it all the way. Jae Shin sighed and curved in and slid a hand over the back of his neck and his mouth, god, his _mouth_ \- two days ago Yong Ha had laid on the couch with Jae Shin hanging over him and had tasted him for the first time and was he ever going to get used it? “I wanted to kiss you again,” he said. “That’s pretty much it.”

Jae Shin took a deep breath. “Look, I know I’m not the kind of person you normally - that you normally go out with,” he said, “and I’m still really bad at this, but -”

“God.” Yong Ha rolled his eyes, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, pulled him in again. “Shut _up_.”

When Yong Ha pulled Jae Shin, he stayed pulled. Leaned in, grabbed Yong Ha’s waist with both hands, pushed him back over the counter. “I just don’t want to fuck it up,” he said, breath hot against Yong Ha’s mouth. “I’m really good at fucking up.”

“You’re really good at never ever ever shutting up when I’m trying to fucking _kiss you_.” Yong Ha’s hands went for the buttons on Jae Shin’s shirt, twisting each one out of its buttonhole systematically. “Listen, it’s really sweet how worried you are about this, but just - just stop overthinking this for five minutes, will you?”

“Okay,” Jae Shin sighed into him, hands slipping under the hem of his shirt, fingertips running over his skin. “Okay.”

Yesterday Jae Shin had been so nervous and awkward and strange, and the kiss had been - it had been thrilling, obviously, but other than that it just hadn’t been that good. Jae Shin’s lips were amazing but he didn’t know what to do with them, what to do with his teeth, what to do with his tongue, so Yong Ha had been fully expecting to have to train him into not being a fucking terrible kisser. ( _You’re the only person I’ve ever kissed_ , he’d said, lying drunk on his bed in the dark, and Yong Ha knew it was true for a million different reasons.) But god, god - Jae Shin had always been a fast learner. He’d never had to study to ace his exams, which was good because he never did any goddamn homework and he never showed up to class. And now Yong Ha could almost _hear_ him learning how to kiss him, could almost hear him burning new associations and connections into his synapses, could almost feel the hum and whisper of thought (the kind without words, the kind that was just muscle memory and instinct) under his skin.

Yesterday Jae Shin had been so nervous and awkward and strange, and kissing him had been just like kissing someone who had never been kissed. Now, barely more than a day later - Jae Shin pressed into him, grazed his teeth over Yong Ha’s upper lip, ran his hands under his shirt and over his ribs, and Yong Ha found himself having a hard time breathing. None of it was practiced. None of it was studied. None of it had come out of a book or a movie or an amateur clip downloaded covertly in the middle of the night. It was all just Jae Shin. It was all just instinct. It was all just Jae Shin learning and absorbing and paying attention to Yong Ha with the kind of blinding focus that he never fucking gave to anything.

The shirt came open under Yong Ha’s hands and he pulled at the hem of Jae Shin’s undershirt, pulling it up so that he could run his hands over Jae Shin’s skin. Jae Shin made a noise into his mouth that reached right down into him, into his lungs, into his heart, reached in and twisted like a corkscrew and fuck, _fuck_ , Yong Ha was going to get so damn attached. He was already so damn attached, and it didn’t help that Jae Shin had slid one knee between his legs when he wasn’t paying attention. What if one day Jae Shin came out of the blue and said he needed to talk and things didn’t end like this? What if one day Jae Shin realized he was just as straight as Yong Ha had always figured he had to be? What if one day Jae Shin realized that nothing at all didn’t actually come with any exceptions, not really?

“A few minutes, you said,” Yong Ha breathed, pulling away from him. “You really actually have work to do, right?”

Jae Shin jerked back - like he was waking up, almost, like he’d forgotten where he was - and glared at the clock on the microwave like it had insulted his mother. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck, it’s past eight. God -” He stumbled backward, struggling with the plackets of his oxford. “Listen -”

“Yeah.” Yong Ha took a second. Tried to catch his breath, ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I know. I’ll… I’ll see you later, all right? Say hi to the cucumber for me.”

Jae Shin stared at him. “Right,” he said. “Right.” He reached out, slipped two fingers into the collar of Yong Ha’s shirt, pulled him back in one more time and kissed him - just for a second - before letting him go one more time. “Right. I’ll - I’ll see you later.”

The front door opened. Closed. Yong Ha stood in the middle of the kitchen, his shirt wrinkled and hitched up. Closed his eyes. Took a deep breath.

The front door opened again, and there was the clattering noise of someone hurriedly kicking their shoes off in the tile entryway. The slide and scuffle of someone trying to make it down the hardwood hallway in socks without falling on their face. And then Jae Shin - red-faced and awkward and tousled, his shirt only barely closed by three buttons in the wrong holes, his lips pink and swollen and wet from kissing him less than a minute ago - swinging around the wall.

“Be here when I get back,” Jae Shin said, breathless. “All right?”

Yong Ha laughed. He couldn’t fucking help it - he felt so stupid and drunk and crazy, there wasn’t anything else he could possibly, possibly do except for laugh. “I will be,” he said. “Go to work. And… and come back home, when you’re done. I’ll be here.”


	14. Keeping Calm and Keeping Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter: Gu Yong Ha is full to bursting with risks untaken; Moon Jae is okay (maybe, not really, not really even a little bit); Kim Yoon Shik takes one step forward and two thousand, six hundred, and forty steps back.

At six o'clock in the morning Yong Ha's phone alarm went off in his ear, jerking him awake into the cold, unforgiving world of morning before sunrise. "Shit," he moaned, slapping his hand down on his phone, trying to pick it up without much success. "Fuck. God damn it."

Maybe ‘morning before sunrise’ wasn’t really that accurate; the rain from the day before seemed to have gone somewhere else in the night and the cold blue light of almost-dawn was beginning to filter in through the white curtains in Jae Shin’s bedroom. Yong Ha lay there with Jae Shin’s thick comforter like a cocoon around him, keeping the warmth tucked in tight against the chill and brittle of early morning, and sleepily watched the light creep higher and higher and higher until -

The phone buzzed in his hand, the five minute snooze having run out as he lay there watching the light change, and he sighed. Groaned. Grumbled something rude, and tried to sit up. Tried, but something held him down.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Let’s think about this.

It wasn’t weird in December when they’d slept on the same mattress in the attic over the bakery. (Well, all right, it was a little weird.) It wasn’t weird back when they were roommates in college and they ended up in the same bed sometimes. (Fine. A little weird.) It wasn’t weird when they shared a hotel bed during vacations, when they shared a tent when they went camping, the million times they’d slept at the other’s house over the years when they were kids. But last night when Jae Shin had dropped him off at the apartment Yong Ha had swallowed his fear and reached out and touched him, and now it was five minutes after six o’clock in the morning and Jae Shin was tucked in close around him like the jacket around a book.

It hadn’t been the comforter that had been so warm, it had been Jae Shin, burning like a furnace against his skin. How come he hadn’t noticed? How the hell had he managed not to notice?

“Hey,” Yong Ha said, sleep still caught in his throat, but Jae Shin just sighed and rolled over onto his back and Yong ha didn’t know what to do next. He’d slept next to Jae Shin a thousand times but he’d never slept next to him after kissing him, after being kissed by him, and god, god, everything about him made Yong Ha more nervous than he’d ever been. He’d never expected to get this far. He’d never expected to lie in a bed next to Jae Shin and feel anything other than mildly resigned contentment so he didn’t know what he felt like. What was this, anyway? What the hell was this?

“Hey,” Yong Ha said again, poking Jae Shin in the eyebrow. “You said you were going to sleep on the couch.”

Jae Shin turned his face away from Yong Ha and mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like a plea for five more minutes. What was the worst part? Was it Jae Shin’s eyelashes against his cheek? Was it how messy his hair was? Was it Jae Shin’s hand under the covers, still resting lazily, contentedly, unself-consciously on Yong Ha’s hip? (Was it that Jae Shin wasn’t even wearing a damn shirt?)

Maybe it was that it was eight minutes after six o’clock in the morning and Yong Ha had to get out of bed. Yeah, that was definitely, absolutely the worst part.

But he had a minute, right? He had a minute. A minute. One minute, so he rolled over and tucked himself in against Jae Shin for just one minute. “Hey,” Yong Ha said for the third time. “Shin. Jae Shin. Moon Jae Shin.”

“Hm,” Jae Shin said, eyes not opening.

“This is your -” _shit, he couldn’t say ‘boyfriend,’ could he?_ “- your best friend speaking.”

Jae Shin shifted a little, eyebrows coming together a little. “Okay.”

“You hog the bed. And you have the core temperature of a volcano. Also -” Yong Ha jerked back and upward without thinking, pushing up onto one elbow “- holy shit, is that your dick pressing against my leg?”

“It’s my arm,” Jae Shin growled, eyes still closed. “You’re so loud.”

“It’s your arm,” Yong Ha echoed, slumping a little with the relief. “Your _arm_. Okay. Wow. Thank god. We were going to have to have a long talk about physical impossibilities.”

“Don’t talk to me about anything. I’m sleeping.”

“I noticed that. I thought you were going to sleep on the couch.”

That’s what it took for Jae Shin to open his eyes - just a little, just a tiny bit, just enough to see where he was - and Yong Ha could almost see the gears in his head shudder and cough into motion. He turned his head and squinted up at Yong Ha. “Oh,” he said stupidly. “I guess I forgot.”

“Were we a little tired last night, then?”

“I guess,” Jae Shin said. He rubbed a hand over his face. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” Yong Ha sat up and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “There are worse ways to wake up.”

“What did you mean, thank god it’s my arm? And something about physical impossibilities…?”

Oh, god. Jae Shin was so innocent and pure and _naive_ that it almost hurt. “Don’t think about it too much.” Yong Ha swung his legs over the edge of the mattress and set his feet on the floor (gloriously warm - Jae Shin was so fucking _fancy_ that he had his floor heating on a scheduled thermostat like some kind of goddamn _princess_ ) and tried stretching for the first time since the day before when his shoulder had complained so much he’d taken a double dose of painkillers and gone to bed early.

Jae Shin’s hand was on his back, fingers twisting in the fabric of his undershirt. He turned. “Yeah?” Jae Shin’s eyes were closed again. He had rolled over, pressed his face into the pillow Yong Ha had just been sleeping on, reached out. Put his hand flat on Yong Ha’s back.

“Let’s try again,” Jae Shin mumbled into the pillow.

“Try what again?”

“A date.” He made a face and opened his eyes again, just slightly. “I don’t think I’ll be very good at them for a while.”

“Practice makes perfect,” Yong Ha said slowly. “Today is… what, is it Thursday already? And we’ve only been open two days. We’ll probably need to wait until the crowds die down.” He patted his mouth thoughtfully with one hand. “We could try Wednesday after next. Weekends are too busy and you won’t have any backup on Tuesday.” Yong Ha looked down at him and his heartbeat jumped, just for a second. How many times had he been this close to Jae Shin and felt nothing at all like this? “Does that work?”

“Nn.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Yeah.” Jae Shin groaned. Rolled over onto his back again and rubbed a hand over his face. “Shit, no. I’m going to dinner with my parents that Wednesday. I have to tell them about what’s going on with the police stakeout. My mom is going to freak out.”

This was the hard part. They were caught in between two completely different places: they’d been friends so long that it was natural to go through all those same movements, those same jibes and rude comments and moments of guarded affection, but they weren’t really the right movements anymore; they’d only kissed four times (four times! he’d kissed _Moon Jae Shin_ four whole times! was this real life?) but whatever this was, it wasn’t quite to the point where Yong Ha could treat Jae Shin the way he would someone he was dating. He didn’t quite know how to flip that switch. He didn’t know what switch he was supposed to be flipping. It was usually so easy, but this time -

“I can hear you,” Jae Shin said.

Yong Ha blinked. “What?”

“You’re thinking too loud.” Jae Shin opened one eye and glowered at him. “Are you trying to come up with something rude to say? It doesn’t usually take you this long.”

“No.” Was honesty the best policy? He didn’t have much practice at it. “I’m thinking about how I’m not really sure what we’re doing.”

“Besides lying in bed trying to mesh our schedules?”

“Mesh our schedules,” Yong Ha said, “so that we can go on a _date_. A date, Shin. A date. A date! What is my life?”

Jae Shin sat up. Didn’t look at him. “We don’t have to. If you don’t want to, we can just -”

“Of course we have to go on a date!” Yong Ha stared at him. “Are you serious? Do you think I don’t like you or something?”

The look on Jae Shin’s face when he turned his head - maybe Yong Ha had seen it before (of course he’d seen it before) but it had a kind of unguarded vulnerability to it that he didn’t remember ever recognizing - it was all caution and curiosity. “Do you?”

“Don’t be stupid -” Hold on. Wait. Hold on a second.

He’d never said, had he? He’d never said anything, and Jae Shin had the observational skills of a stunned goat on a good day. What did he expect? “Yes,” Yong Ha said, and a switch flipped somewhere in the back of his head. "I like you. Of course I like you.” Yong Ha looked at him, really looked at him - at the shadows under his eyes and his messed up hair and how he hadn’t shaved in a few days and the way his lips parted when he was worried about something - and knew they weren’t really just friends anymore.

They weren’t really friends just anymore, so Yong Ha leaned forward. Curved his hand over the back of Jae Shin’s neck. Pulled him in and kissed him, careful careful careful not to kiss him too deep because then maybe he’d never be able to leave. “I have to go to work,” he said when he pulled away. “You wouldn’t believe what a slave driver my boss is.”

“He schedules you too early,” Jae Shin sighed. His hand came up and wrapped around Yong Ha’s wrist. “You should just go in late.”

“He doesn’t schedule me at all.” Yong Ha slipped his wrist out of Jae Shin’s grip. “I need to go in a little early to account for the first week after the grand re-opening. It’s been crazy. There’s hardly any backstock.”

“So you’re just going to kiss me and leave?” The look on Jae Shin’s face was mostly sleepy humor but it was part embarrassment, too. Like he couldn’t believe himself. “That’s rude.”

Yong Ha’s self control cracked. (Had the kiss been too deep after all? Or was it just the look on Jae Shin’s face, the flush in his cheeks, the way his lips parted when he smiled?) “I’m rude?” He reached out. Placed a hand on Jae Shin’s chest. “ _I’m_ rude?” Pushed him back down onto the mattress. “You’re the one who made me think you were breaking up with me. You were the one who almost killed us both driving home -”

“You weren’t going to die,” Jae Shin protested, struggling a little under Yong Ha’s hand.

“- you were the one,” Yong Ha continued, curving over Jae Shin, resting more weight on the hand over his chest, “who got into bed with me last night. Are you trying to kill me? You’re not even wearing a shirt. I have to go to work,” he said again, gesturing wildly with his free hand, ”and you’re lying next to me, in bed, without a shirt on. And _I’m_ rude?”

“I can put on a shirt,” Jae Shin stammered, missing the point entirely.

“Thanks,” Yong Ha said. He could almost hear the sound of the last vestiges of his self control shattering. “I’d really rather you didn’t.”

A relationship can’t get off the ground without taking a few risks and Yong Ha felt like he was full to bursting of risks left untaken with Jae Shin, like money saved up in the bank with no defined purpose, so he took a risk. Swung himself over Jae Shin so that he was straddling his hips. Bent down — stopped. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Jae Shin said. His face had gone pale and his whole body had gone tense like a spring and he was up on his elbows, pulling back. “Maybe. I don’t know. No.” He shook his head. Took a deep breath that shook in his lungs. “No. I’m not okay. Fuck. I’m sorry. I’ve never -” But he was scrambled now, still shaking his head, still pulling back. He had that one look on his face, the one he used to get when his dad yelled at him, the one he’d had when Yong Ha had given him that damn cake.

“Don’t apologize,” Yong Ha said quickly, falling over himself to get off from on top of Jae Shin. “Jesus, Shin, you don’t - you don’t have to apologize to me, it’s okay. It’s okay. It’s really okay.” When he touched Jae Shin’s arm the skin was cool and slick with sweat. “Is it just because this is new?”

Jae Shin bent forward, legs coming up, until his forehead was against his knees. His breath was stuttered and quick. “Yeah.”

“Are you sure?”

“No.” He sat back up a little. Took a deep breath. Ran a hand through his hair, over the back of his head, down onto his neck the same way Yong Ha had seen him do a million times, the thing he did when he was trying to pull himself together. “I don’t know. Sorry. I’m okay.”

“Did he do this?”

Jae Shin looked up. “What?”

“The guy.” Yong Ha waved a hand. He felt hot, he felt cold, he felt furious. “The guy. The kidnapper. Did he mess you up?” He swung his legs over the edge of the mattress and his head was so full of heat and light and fire that it felt like it was going to float away. “I’m going to catch this fucker. I’m going to make cake so good he’ll come by every day. I’m going to figure out who he is and put arsenic in his pudding. I’m going to -”

“Hey.” Jae Shin’s hand on his back, the warmth in his palm pulling the heat out of him.

Yong Ha turned to look at him. “I’m serious, Shin. You’re my -” _hell, he still couldn’t convince himself to say ‘boyfriend’_ “- you’re my best friend and this… this goddamn monster -”

“You can’t kill him,” Jae Shin interrupted. He looked serious for a second before suddenly he was grinning - thin and weak, but grinning. “What am I gonna do if you go to jail for murder?”

Yong Ha opened his mouth to say - well, who knew at this point, it was probably going to be something rude - but couldn’t quite manage it. The morning light was beaming in through the window and bouncing off the polished hardwood, off the white cotton of Jae Shin’s duvet, shining off the dust hanging in the air, and in the middle of all of it was Jae Shin. Jae Shin, gray-faced and messed up and grinning at him anyway. He was messed up. He was stupid and horrible and irritable all the time and impatient and short-tempered and perfect, and somebody had messed him up.

He laid his hand down on the sheet, palm up. “I care about you,” he said, because there wasn’t anything else he could bring himself to say. ( _I love you_ wasn’t right. It was true, it had been true for a long time, but things were still too tentative and strange.)

Jae Shin hesitated for a second before reaching out and laying his hand over Yong Ha’s palm. “Thanks.” He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. “Could you -”

“Could I what?”

“Could you stay with me?” The words came out fast, nervous. Jae Shin rubbed a hand over his face. The flush that came over him at least brought the color back into his cheeks. “Like you used to. When the nightmares got bad.”

“I didn’t know you knew about that.”

Jae Shin threw him a disbelieving look. “Of course I knew. I’d wake up and you’d be wrapped around me like a damn boa constrictor.” He hesitated. “It helped. I’d wake up feeling like I’d actually slept.”

Yong Ha couldn’t stop himself from glancing at the digital clock read-out on his phone lock screen. Twenty-two minutes after six o’clock in the morning, and he’d been planning on being at the bakery by 7:30. He hadn’t showered. He hadn’t gotten dressed. The closest station was a seven minute walk and then another ten minutes to walk after getting off at the right stop. The logistics didn’t allow for it no matter how many short cuts he took, no matter how fast he was, no matter how clever. He had a million things to do at the bakery and not enough time to do them all even if he got in early and stayed late -

“You don’t have to,” Jae Shin said quickly. “It’s okay.”

“Move over,” Yong Ha said, pulling the covers up and slipping back between the sheets again. “You hog the bed. You have the core temperature of a volcano.” He curved his arm over Jae Shin’s rib cage and his heartbeat jumped a little - being this close to Jae Shin used to feel like the most dangerous thing he’d ever done and his adrenal glands hadn’t caught up with reality quite yet - but he moved in close regardless. “You smell horrible.” He smelled amazing. “You’re so bony.” Yong Ha was sick to death of keeping his distance so instead he tucked his face into the hollow between Jae Shin’s throat and collar bone. “You’re the worst bedmate I’ve ever had.”

“I said you didn’t have to.”

He had a million things to do at the bakery and not enough time to do them all even if he got in early and stayed late, so what did it matter? He’d be busy anyway. He’d have to catch up tomorrow anyway. He’d have to stay late anyway. But right now he was here and it was now and there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t give to go back in time and stop himself from being the reason why Jae Shin’s pulse still beat hard and fast and panicked under his hand. “I know I don’t have to,” he said instead. “Thanks for letting me sleep in your bed. My shoulder feels better than it did yesterday.”

Jae Shin sighed into his hair. Wrapped an arm around him. Pulled him in close like he used to do only when he was asleep. “When are we going on that date?”

“Thursday.”

“Okay,” Jae Shin said. His voice was exhausted, mostly asleep, coming from somewhere a long way off. His pulse was slowing. “Okay. Thursday.”

 

It had been three days since the bakery had opened up again and Kim Yoon Shik was already exhausted. He’d known that they were popular, sure, but not this popular. Not with this many people, not over this much of Seoul, not at this level of intensity. When he showed up at work at 11:30 in the morning the sign on the door was still flipped to CLOSED and the lights in the front were all off and there was no movement visible from the front windows but there were already people waiting. Already! They didn’t open for another half hour! Didn’t people have places to be? Didn’t they have jobs? Didn’t they have homes to go to?

Normally he would stand on the front step and either bang on the front door or call Gu Yong Ha to let him in, but not today. There were too many people (and if he wasn’t careful one of them would recognize him) so he very very very casually turned on his heel and walked as fast as he could around the corner, around the back, down the alley behind the row of shop fronts until he reached the door of the bakery. All of the shops looked different from this side but he never needed to double check that he was in the right place. None of the other shops along this row had the same distinct hanok look, none of the other shops kept the back door slightly ajar, none of the other shops had that same telltale scent of browned butter and heavy cream.

When he opened the door the noise was incredible, but then it always was. Gu Yong Ha seemed to have made a pact with himself to make as much noise as humanly possible. The enormous butcher block counter in the center of the kitchen was filled edge-to-edge with tray upon tray upon tray, each tray packed full with different types of cake and pastry, mousse and tarts, and in the middle of it all was Gu Yong Ha, surrounded by a cloud of what could only be powdered sugar.

“You’re running behind,” Kim Yoon Shik commented, shrugging out of his jacket and swapping it out for his barista’s apron on the hook. He slipped it over his head and twisted his hands behind his back to tie it tight (but not too tight) over his abdomen. “Did you get in late?”

Gu Yong Ha scrubbed a splash of chocolate ganache from his eyebrow with the back of his wrist, glancing up at him. “Something like that. Jesus, is it already 11:30?” He stared down at the trays of cake with a look of despair on his face, a pastry bag full of whipped cream cradled in the crook of one arm. “Maybe if I just do enough to fill up the case for now, then I can come back and finish the rest before anyone comes in…?”

“I wouldn’t bet on that.” Yoon Shik strode through the kitchen and hesitantly poked his head through the swinging door. “I came in the back because there are already people waiting.”

This got a groan. “Serves me right,” Gu Yong Ha said, hefting the whipped cream and steadying his hand over the first row of opera cake slices.

“Oh?” Yoon Shik looked up at the clock behind Yong Ha’s head and tried like hell not to grin wickedly. “Were you busy doing something else this morning?”

“Well, I wasn’t having a clandestine make-out session out behind the bakery with my boyfriend if that’s what you’re asking,” Yong Ha replied smoothly, not looking up from his studious application of whipped cream to baked goods. “Unlike some people I could mention.”

Yoon Shik gawked at him. “What? Who -”

“Don’t play stupid, kid.” Yong Ha closed one eye. Stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth in concentration. Adjusted his grip on the slowly-emptying pastry bag as he shifted to the next tray. “It doesn’t suit you.”

“You -” Yoon Shik swallowed. “You can’t prove anything.”

“Are you joking?” This got Yong Ha to glance up. “I’m Gu Yong Ha. I’m a little hurt that you seem surprised by this.”

Yoon Shik fell back hard against the wall, hand over his heart. The world was spinning. Maybe he was dying. Maybe he was dreaming. Maybe he was already dead and had somehow ended up in hell. Was there anything worse than this? For once he thought he’d had one over on Gu Yong Ha but he had nothing, less than nothing, and instead it was Gu Yong Ha who was two steps ahead. Five steps, a dozen, a whole mile ahead. “How did you find out?”

Yong Ha shrugged. Shook his head. “It’s not that mysterious. You might want to pick your kissing locations better, is all. The cops have cameras all over this place, including -” He shot Yoon Shik a meaningful glance. “- around back.”

“Oh my god,” Yoon Shik moaned into his hands.

“Don’t waste any time panicking. Nobody cares.” Yong Ha paused for a second. “Well, Jae Shin acted like he was about to keel over dead from shock for about three hours, but he doesn’t have a problem with it. He just wouldn’t recognize a budding romance if it came up and bit him on the arm.”

“Does everyone know?”

“Hopefully the sea cucumber knows,” Yong Ha replied. “Jae Shin knows, obviously, unless he’s blocked it from his memory. I’ve known since the second I saw you two together for the first time. At least one of the officers upstairs knows, but Jae Shin said he was fine with it, and if any of the others give you any trouble give me a call and I’ll come over and eat whipped cream at them. If you’re not going out to the front quite yet do you mind making yourself useful and plating some of this?”

“I have to start the coffee,” Yoon Shik mumbled, staggering out of the kitchen.

“Don’t worry!” Yong Ha called after him. “Everyone in this damn bakery is a fucking _pro_ at keeping secrets.”


	15. A Week, Maybe Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter: Gu Yong Ha asks an inconvenient question; Moon Jae Shin obsesses over nothing. (But since when is that new?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may have noticed that the rating for this fic has been changed from Mature to Explicit. The explicit content isn't in this chapter, but it will happen. (It may also be less exciting than you want it to be because I'm a trembling lump of anxiety, prone to rating high just to be on the "safe" side.) Consider yourself informed.

Jae Shin fumbled with his keys, almost dropping them twice before finding the right one for his front door. When the door opened his apartment was dark and quiet. He stepped out of his shoes. Left his coat on a hook in the entryway. Padded through the apartment in the dark, eyes half closed, navigating by memory more than anything.

In his bedroom he turned on his bedside lamp. Unbuttoned his shirt. Stepped out of his jeans. Pulled back the blankets. Lay down.

Yong Ha sighed and groaned and rolled over, pressing his face into Jae Shin's shoulder. "Welcome back," he mumbled into Jae Shin's t-shirt. "Turn the light off, will you?"

"In a minute."

It took getting used to, whatever this was. They'd been doing this for two weeks now (on accident? on purpose? he couldn’t tell anymore) and even though they'd slept side by side on an even smaller mattress for months in the attic somehow this was different. Stranger. More electric. But comfortable, somehow - in the way a sweater is comfortable when you pull it out of storage in October after the last days of a particularly hot summer, something you forgot you had but which still fits you perfectly.

The mattress creaked and complained gently under them as Jae Shin adjusted and settled, figuring out how to position himself all over again. Alone he knew what worked. Next to Yong Ha, careful not to make contact, that he could figure out as well. But here, now, with Yong Ha already laying splayed out and half asleep in his bed, all knees and elbows and sighing hot breath - it was like a puzzle, was what it was. How much contact was too much? How much distance? Yong Ha always seemed like one half of a knot waiting to pull tight, and hell if Jae Shin could figure out how to be the other half.

"You take too long," Yong Ha grumbled sleepily, reaching out and hooking two fingers into the elastic waistband of Jae Shin's boxers. "You're like a dog turning around three times before going to sleep. Just go to sleep."

"I'm so sorry for trying not to crush you," Jae Shin mumbled back, trying to remove Yong Ha's hand from his boxers as nonchalantly as possible. (Yong Ha was tired, exhausted, half asleep even. There was no way that meant anything, and if anyone in Jae Shin's boxers had a problem with that then maybe they should just calm down. Definitely calm down. Please, please calm down.) "Maybe if you tried taking up less than two thirds of the bed this wouldn't take so much effort."

"I don't mind getting a little crushed," Yong Ha said, "now and again." He turned his face up into the light a little and opened one eye. "How was your day? Catch any villains yet?"

"Just you." There was nothing for it. Jae Shin slipped one arm under Yong Ha's neck, hand curling up to rest on Yong Ha's shoulder.

Yong Ha sighed and settled into him, wrapping an arm around his waist, curving one leg over to hook around Jae Shin's knee. "It's sweet that you think you've caught me."

"Didn't I tell you? There's a warrant out for your arrest. I'm collecting the reward in the morning."

Yong Ha lifted his head and fixed Jae Shin with a glare. "For what crime?"

"Public indecency," Jae Shin replied promptly, reaching out with his free hand to turn off his bedside lamp.

"Public indecency? Public indecency?!" Yong Ha sat up in the dark. "That's the best you can come up with. Really. Why public indecency?"

Jae Shin reached up and twisted his fingers in the sleeve of Yong Ha's t-shirt, tugging him downwards again. "You're Gu Yong Ha," he said, not quite awake enough now to be embarrassed by how hoarse his voice was. "You're always indecent. Don't you ever look in a mirror?"

Even in the dark, with his eyes closed, Jae Shin could feel the burning force of Yong Ha's glare on his skin. (It had a heat not unlike a glare from his mother.) But Yong Ha just sighed, shook his head, settled back down against Jae Shin's side. "I look fine," he grumbled into Jae Shin's chest, wrapping an arm back around his waist. "Perfectly decent."

It was unintentional. It had to have been unintentional, the way Yong Ha's fingers had slipped just slightly under the waistband of his boxers. Right? Right. Right. "Looking fine and being indecent aren't always mutually exclusive."

"I liked it better when you'd just give up," Yong Ha said. "Remember? Those were the days. I'd talk shit and you'd just roll your eyes and pretend I didn't exist. Now you talk shit right back and frankly it's a little off-putting."

"Sorry." Jae Shin rolled over a little, threw his arm over Yong Ha. (This was stupid. This was stupid. Yong Ha smelled obnoxiously fantastic and his skin was warm and the sound of his voice when he was sleepy - god. This was incredibly, incredibly stupid.) "I've been dating someone and I think they've been a bad influence."

Yong Ha seemed to go still. "You've been dating someone?"

"Or something." Shit. Was that the wrong word to use? What was the right word, then? Mostly they were just incredibly awkward and sometimes they slept in the same bed and two weeks ago Yong Ha had gotten on top of him unexpectedly and that had gone so hilariously poorly that they’d only even kissed a few times since. Yong Ha almost seemed too scared to touch him - as though he’d shatter under his fingertips, as though he would fold in on himself like a collapsing souffle, as though he would vanish in a puff of smoke. (And the words _a week, maybe two_ whispering in the back of his head like the ticking of a clock, counting down to an expiration date that he’d never been able to pin down.) "I don't know. Go to sleep."

The mattress creaked. Yong Ha had picked up his head again. "Are we dating?"

Fuck. "I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not. Isn't dating what people do to get to know each other? We already know each other. I don't know what this is."

And the award for the most absolute worst response to a loaded relationship question goes to Moon Jae Shin. He was going to die, wasn't he? He was going to die. He would end up falling off a cliff of his own creation and plummeting to his death in a vat of boiling awkwardness.

But then instead, out of the dark and the quiet: "What do you want it to be?" And then Yong Ha's hand was slipping over the skin of his waist, just under the hem of his t-shirt; his back seemed to arch just a little to curve his ribs against Jae Shin's; his muscles went quiet and tense as if waiting for something. He seemed almost too scared to touch him but he reached out anyway, fingertips dragging over his skin. "What do you want it to be?"

The fear and the guilt and the nerves - Jae Shin hadn't dared risk it, taking the time to wonder what this was. The words _a week, maybe two_ kept running through his head every damn time he started getting too comfortable, every time he started thinking that maybe Yong Ha might belong to him even a little. The fear and the guilt and the nerves - they were too much and too heavy and Jae Shin didn't know what he wanted. Couldn't think of a name for it. Couldn't put it in words. Didn’t know if he should, even if he could.

So instead he didn't try. Instead he pushed himself up onto his elbow. Slid one hand around Yong Ha's waist, over the curve of his hips, under the hem of his t-shirt. Bent down, and kissed Yong Ha uncertainly at the corner of his mouth. "I still kind of don't know," he mumbled, trying to hold back the embarrassment for as long as he could. "But whatever this is -"

Yong Ha's muscles had been quiet and tense as if waiting for something, but now he moved - bringing his hand up to cup Jae Shin's jawline, fingers curling behind his neck, pulling him back down - arching up and up and up to press his lips against Jae Shin's mouth. "It's really okay," he said, his voice tight, his breath stuttered, his hand clenched almost desperately over the back of Jae Shin's neck. "We don't have to call it anything."

Jae Shin felt his whole body start to heat up from his bones out. "Whatever this is," he said again, and (god, god, god Yong Ha's hand on his skin, fingers curling on his neck) took a deep breath. "Whatever this is, it's..." How could he be so bad with words? There were so many things he wanted to say, but he didn't know how. "I don't know."

"It's okay."

It wasn't okay. It wasn't okay. It wasn't okay. _A week, maybe two,_ but Yong Ha had been so damn careful with him for weeks, had woken up next to him when he lay down, had reached out for him and seemed almost too scared to touch him, to hurt him, to break him. "I don't know," Jae Shin said quietly, leaning down to rest his forehead on Yong Ha's shoulder, smoothing his hand up Yong Ha's waist and under his shirt until he could feel ribs under his fingers, "I don't know how long I've wanted this. I think it's been a long time, but I don't know."

In the darkness Yong Ha took in a breath (so soft and quick it was almost a hiccup) and curved against his hand, reaching down and dragging his fingers up Jae Shin's side, pulling up his shirt. "What do you mean?"

"I think I figured it out the day after Christmas. You got so drunk -"

"I wasn't that drunk," Yong Ha grumbled.

"- and you smelled like salt and smoke and lemon soju," Jae Shin said, ignoring him. His hand on Yong Ha's ribs tightened involuntarily. "I missed you."

"You missed me?" Yong Ha said, sitting up slightly. "You missed me?" He tangled his fingers in the collar of Jae Shin's t-shirt, pulled him in. "You missed me?" And then Yong Ha was on him, hand sliding behind his neck. "You jerk," he muttered, pulling Jae Shin's face in toward him. "You absolute fucking jerk, I missed the hell out of you."

Jae Shin was twenty-eight before he kissed anyone, and even now he felt almost like the number of times he’d been kissed could be counted on the fingers of one hand. All of them were Gu Yong Ha, all of them had been uncertain and careful and so cautious they were almost chaste, all of them had turned him upside down completely - but when Yong Ha kissed him then, there wasn't anything uncertain about it. It was only careful in that Yong Ha seemed to know exactly what he was doing. And whether or not it was chaste -

"Oh, god," Jae Shin mumbled stupidly into Yong Ha's mouth, his voice just a sigh in the quiet of the bedroom.

His whole life he'd never given much thought to God, to some ethereal being sitting up in heaven judging everyone. What little thought he had indulged had mostly been fury: for what had happened to him, for what had happened to his family, to what had happened to his brother, for what hadn't happened at all to the man in the dark with his hands that stretched and reached and dug into him and his body and his head (and his heart and his mind and his tongue and his eyes and and and) like worms in the meat of a corpse. It had all been rage and disgust and hate and fury and fury and fury.

But in the dark, in the quiet, in the tangle of blankets and undershirts and boxers and hot breath, Jae Shin almost understood what it meant to believe in God.

"I'm don't want to do anything you don't want me to do," Yong Ha sighed against him. "Tell me if you're not okay."

“Just…” Just what? What was there to say? He was scared still, scared and anxious and closed off. There were parts of himself he couldn’t figure out how to get to yet. There were things he couldn’t ask for. “Just be here with me.”

“I can do that.” Yong Ha settled in next to him, his breath just a little bit quick. “You didn’t really answer my question.”

“Your what? What question?”

“Are we dating?”

“You’re the expert here. I don’t know what this is.” He didn’t want to name it. Naming it made it real. Making it real made it something that could be destroyed. “I’m in uncharted territory.”

“ _You’re_ in uncharted territory?” Yong Ha seemed to consider this for a second. “Okay, yeah. But I’ve never been with somebody I’ve known for sixteen years. I’ve never been with somebody who -” He stuttered into silence. “… who’s known me for that long.”

“So this is just weird for both of us?” Jae Shin rubbed a hand over his face. “Great.”

A few seconds of busy silence as Yong Ha thought so hard Jae Shin could almost hear the gears in his head click and whirr. “Dating works,” he said finally. “I can’t think of anything else that fits any better.”

Jae Shin propped himself up on an elbow. Worked up his nerve. “So - if we’re dating, what do people do when they’re dating?”

“Go on dates, for one,” Yong Ha said, holding up a hand to count off on his fingers. “We’ve got that one covered on Thursday. They usually text each other too much and act all obnoxious about it.” He hesitated. “They also tend to kiss a lot.”

“I’m kind of bad at that part.”

“You usually pick things up quickly.” A second of silence. “I mean, it’s really okay -”

The bed creaked under them as Jae Shin curved over. He didn’t say anything because he didn’t have anything to say, he’d used up all his words, he didn’t have any way to explain or excuse himself and he didn’t care. There were parts of himself that were still closed off, that he couldn’t figure how to get to yet, but there wasn’t any part of him that didn’t want to lean down and stop Yong Ha from talking more.

Yong Ha’s mouth was hot and his lips were still wet from kissing him before and it was kind of weird, it was kind of weird being this damn close to someone he’d known this long but fuck it. Fuck it. He knew that he was still kind of bad at kissing but when he pressed his lips to Yong Ha’s mouth he didn’t care. _A week, maybe two_ but he didn’t care. A hundred reasons this would all end horribly, a thousand reasons, a million, but he didn’t care. Just for a second, he didn’t care. Just for a second he was just Jae Shin and Yong Ha was just himself and they had never fought and they had never lied and they had never confused each other and scared each other and Yong Ha had never gotten hurt and Jae Shin hadn’t fucked up on that nightmare evening in late December and Yong Ha hadn’t left and way back when, way back on the night before Nonsan (when Yong Ha had smelled like salt and smoke and lemon soju) Jae Shin had curved down into him and nothing had gone wrong. Just for a second it was like nothing had gone wrong. Just for a second Jae Shin didn’t have anything to be scared of.

“I really like you,” Yong Ha said.

 _It’s been two weeks,_ whispered the voice in the back of Jae Shin’s head, back with a vengeance. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Yong Ha echoed back. Sleep was starting to creep back into his voice. He settled his shoulder in tight under Jae Shin’s arm, lay his head on the curve of Jae Shin’s shoulder, pressed his forehead into the hollow between Jae Shin’s throat and his collar bone. “Yeah. More than anybody.”

“More than you liked Jean-Baptiste?” Shut up. Shut _up._ “God, sorry. I don’t know why I -”

“Yeah,” Yong Ha said again. He was mostly asleep now. His voice was distant. His muscles were loosening. “Yeah. More than I ever liked Jean-Baptiste.”

 _A week, maybe two_ \- but Yong Ha had been with Jean-Baptiste longer than two weeks. Maybe they had time. Maybe Jae Shin had time. He buried his face in Yong Ha’s hair - he smelled like browned butter and bread and the shampoo he used, something cool and complex that Jae Shin couldn’t quite place - and pulled him in close, the way he used to do only when Yong Ha thought he was asleep. “I like you too,” he said. “We’re going to be okay.”


	16. 50,000₩

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter: Kim Yoon Shik wins a bet; Lee Seon Joon learns his lesson; Gu Yong Ha sends an accidental sext; Moon Jae Shin considers drowning himself in the bathroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is short, but I'm aaaaalmost done with the next chapter so it'll go up soon. :D

Yong Ha shouldered into his jacket, hand slipping into the pocket to make sure his keys were still there. Jae Shin had given him a key a few days ago (it was a weird thing to feel odd about, but there you go) and he kept getting worried all over again that he’d misplaced it somewhere. Dropped it down a grate, maybe. Left it on the bathroom sink. Ate it on accident. Okay, okay, that was going a little overboard, but it made him nervous. The last time he’d had the key to the apartment of someone he was sleeping with (in the strictest, most literal sense of the term in this case) it had been in France, and just look how that had worked out.

But despite everything the key was still there on his keyring where he’d put it. So was it just his now? Did it belong to him? Did he just live at Jae Shin’s apartment? They’d roomed together before, in college, but that was different. That was platonic, no matter how many times Yong Ha had ended up in Jae Shin’s bed and Jae Shin had ended up in Yong Ha’s. (Yong Ha had to wonder whether Jae Shin thought that that was actually normal. Yong Ha had, of course, shared all kinds of different beds with all kinds of different men, but there was usually - okay, always - sex involved.) And now they were… what? What were they?

Dating. They were dating. Jae Shin had said it himself last night. They were dating, like a bunch of kids. There had to be a better word for it, right? There had to be. But just then Yong Ha couldn’t think of one, so maybe _dating_  was as good as anything.

He pushed through the swinging door into the bakery and tried like hell to pretend that he wasn’t occupied with the kind of romantic crisis he hadn’t expected to have over the age of 17. “Good evening, children. How goes it out here?”

The bakery was empty, one of those brief moments between crowds. Yoon Shik looked up and then immediately looked down at his hands again, stilling almost imperceptibly. Seon Joon didn’t seem apprehensive at all (had Yoon Shik not talked to him about the conversation they’d had? no way _that_ didn’t happen) and just nodded respectfully. “Are you going home?”

Yong Ha shrugged indulgently. “Nothing left for me to do here. I expect the boss will be by at around eleven o’clock to relieve you. Text me if he doesn’t show up, I’ll give him an earful.”

“So he isn’t driving you home?”

It was Yoon Shik’s voice. Yong Ha hadn’t expected to hear much out of him for a few more days at least, judging by the look of abject embarrassment that he’d had a week and a half ago when Yong Ha had filled him in on the camera locations. Maybe the kid had more guts than he’d expected. “Not tonight,” Yong Ha said over his shoulder, heading for the front door. “He’s having dinner with his parents. Telling them about our guests upstairs, and lord knows when that’s finishing up.”

"How do you know so much about his schedule?"

Yong Ha skidded to a stop. Swallowed. Tried like hell to collect himself. (What? What? What kind of loaded question was that?) Turned around and gave Yoon Shik as disarming a grin as he could manage. "Sorry? I didn't catch that."

Yoon Shik carefully folded the damp rag he held in his hands and laid it down on the counter. Leaned back against the coffee bar. Crossed his arms over his chest. Cocked his head to one side. "How do you know so much about his schedule? Are you two dating now?” (Behind the display case, Seon Joon froze as though suddenly paying very, very close attention to something.)

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. "Ah," Yong Ha said. Was Jae Shin going to kill him? "We’re…” Fuck. “I mean -” Fuck! “- it’s not -”

Yoon Shik brought up a hand and began nonchalantly inspecting his nails. "So you've finally gotten back together, then?"

"What?" He'd been halfway expecting the former question, (Jae Shin spent all his time in the kitchen these days and the last time Yong Ha had had to find his own way home had been weeks ago - the kids would have had to be stupid or deaf or blind or maybe even all three not to figure something was up), but this one threw him off balance. "No! We were never - we've never - there's no 'back together' going on here. What are you -"

But Yoon Shik shouted: "HA!" and threw his hand out toward Seon Joon. "You owe me 50,000 won, Joon. Pay up."

Seon Joon rounded on Yong Ha then, brow furrowed with intent focus. “Are you sure? Are you lying? You two have really never dated before?”

“Never,” Yong Ha repeated. The world was spinning. What was going on? “We’ve never done anything.” (That was only kind of a lie. A tiny one, really, not even a lie at all. They’d certainly never _dated_ before.)

Seon Joon made an irritated noise and reached into his back pocket for his wallet. Pulled out five green 10,000 won notes and surrendered them into Yoon Shik’s open palm. “You win.”

The kid’s fist closed around the money and then pumped victoriously into the air. “Yes!”

“You were -” Yong Ha sputtered to a stop. “You were _betting_?”

“For almost _five fucking months_ ,” Yoon Shik hissed, counting and re-counting the bills in his hand. “The cucumber here was convinced that you two had dated and broken up before either of us met you.” He looked up and twinkled. “Sort of like how both you and the boss were convinced Joon and I had dated. But with more profit for me, in this case. Maybe I’ll buy some new shoes?”

“That’s very unprofessional,” Yong Ha said weakly, sitting down at one of the tables next to the front.

“Write me a letter when this place gets professional,” Yoon Shik shot back, tucking the money into his back pocket. “I’ll frame it. We can hang it upstairs, in the office. You know, the room where you and the boss slept in the same bed for three months straight?”

Yong Ha glared at him. “Okay. Okay. I get it. Message received.” He stood up. Sat down again. Took a deep breath and stood up for good this time. “I need to go home.”

“Have a good night!” Yoon Shik called after him. “Say hi to your boyfriend for us!”

 

“That was mean,” Seon Joon said, after Yong Ha had vanished into the evening.

“That was amazing,” Yoon Hee beamed. “He’ll survive. He’s put me through worse. And anyway you’re just mad because I was right and you were wrong.”

“All of the signs were there!”

Yoon Hee shook her head. “See? If you watched dramas you would have recognized an unconsummated love when you saw it. That was a classic To The Beautiful You-style situation!” She sighed happily and leaned back against the coffee bar. “I’ll buy you dinner sometime to make up for it.”

 

* * *

**From: Gu Yong Ha**  
**Sent: 17:23, April 25**

My shift is over. You don’t even want to know what the kids did. I’ll fill you in later.

**From: Gu Yong Ha**  
**Sent: 17:23, April 25**

Text me if you need anything - alcohol, a daring rescue, dick pics…

* * *

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 17:27, April 25**

Do not send me pictures of your dick.

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 17:27, April 25**

Or anyone else’s dick, for that matter.

* * *

**From: Gu Yong Ha**  
**Sent: 17:29, April 25**

How do you know me so well?

**From: Gu Yong Ha**  
**Sent: 18:14, April 25**

How are you holding up?

* * *

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 18:21, April 25**

I wish you were here.

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 18:22, April 25**

No, I don’t wish you were here because ‘here’ is horrible and not even you deserve this level of hellish punishment.

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 18:23, April 25**

How’s this: I wish I was somewhere else. With you.

* * *

**From: Gu Yong Ha**  
**Sent: 18:27, April 25**

That bad?

* * *

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 18:28, April 25**

Worse. I’m hiding in the bathroom. If I don’t go back out soon my mom is going to think I drowned myself in here.

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 18:30, April 25**

I’m considering it.

* * *

**From: Gu Yong Ha**  
**Sent: 18:33, April 25**

You can’t die. I haven’t gotten you off yet. You’re not allowed to die until I’ve touched your dick.

**From: Gu Yong Ha**  
**Sent: 18:33, April 25**

nO THAT ONE WASN’T SUPPOSED TO GET SENT

**From: Gu Yong Ha**  
**Sent: 18:33, April 25**

I HATE THIS PHONE

* * *

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 18:34, April 25**

jesus christ Yong Ha

* * *

**From: Gu Yong Ha**  
**Sent: 18:35, April 25**

Forget I sent that one. Delete it. It didn’t happen. I was joking! It was definitely a joke.

* * *

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 18:36, April 25**

It’s too late. It’s been burned into my retinas. When I die and the coroner harvests my organs whatever poor soul ends up with my eyes will have to look at your accidental sext for the rest of their miserable lives.

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 18:52, April 25**

I got in trouble with my dad for spending too much time laughing in the bathroom by myself. This is your fault.

* * *

**From: Gu Yong Ha**  
**Sent: 18:59, April 25**

Stop texting me. I died from shame twenty minutes ago.

* * *

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 19:03, April 25**

But you haven’t touched my dick yet

* * *

**From: Gu Yong Ha**  
**Sent: 19:04, April 25**

Moon Jae Shin I swear on my grandmother’s grave that I will end you

* * *

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 19:05, April 25**

Before or after you touch my dick?

* * *

**From: Gu Yong Ha**  
**Sent: 19:30, April 25**

Where are you sending these texts? Are you hiding under the dining room table? Is this speech recognition software? Are you bonding with your parents over making fun of me?

* * *

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 19:31, April 25**

Absolutely not. I told them I’m having to keep in constant contact with Lee Seon Joon because he’s never worked alone before.

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 19:32, April 25**

I’m not going to talk about you touching my dick at the dinner table.

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 19:32, April 25**

Or anyway, I’m not going to talk about you touching my dick at the dinner table WITH MY PARENTS.

* * *

**From: Gu Yong Ha**  
**Sent: 19:33, April 25**

I’m not going to touch your dick at the dinner table.

* * *

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 19:37, April 25**

You’re so weird.

* * *

**From: Gu Yong Ha**  
**Sent: 19:39, April 25**

Yeah, but you’re the one dating me. Who’s the weird one now?

**From: Gu Yong Ha**  
**Sent: 20:20, April 25**

Let me guess. Your dad is still talking.

* * *

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 20:21, April 25**

It’s like you’re psychic

* * *

**From: Gu Yong Ha**  
**Sent: 20:22, April 25**

I have 20:20 vision.

* * *

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 20:27, April 25**

What? You’re practically blind

* * *

**From: Gu Yong Ha**  
**Sent: 20:29, April 25**

No, 20:20 vision. I can see anything that happens at 20:20. It’s time zone restricted, though.

* * *

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 20:33, April 25**

>:|

* * *

**From: Gu Yong Ha**  
**Sent: 20:29, April 25**

I’ve never seen an emoticon more perfectly fitting. It looks just like you.

**From: Gu Yong Ha**  
**Sent: 20:41, April 25**

You okay over there?

**From: Gu Yong Ha**  
**Sent: 20:58, April 25**

I know this is really rough for you. I’m proud of you for talking to them.

**From: Gu Yong Ha**  
**Sent: 21:03, April 25**

Can you imagine how my parents will react when I tell them I fuck dudes? You’ll have to call an ambulance, hahaha

**From: Gu Yong Ha**  
**Sent: 21:16, April 25**

You’re doing the right thing.

**From: Gu Yong Ha**  
**Sent: 21:29, April 25**

Hey. When this is over you can come home and I’ll make you a drink. Okay?


	17. Support

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains Smut Lite. Goodbye, I have to go be embarrassed somewhere else.

There were enough cars driving by at this time of night that one more didn’t make Yong Ha look up. The sound of a car door slamming shut was enough of a regular evening noise that it didn’t make Yong Ha look up. But the footsteps on the other side of the door, the key in the lock, the sound of the door clicking open -

“You’re earlier than I expected,” Yong Ha said, not looking up from the book he’d been reading. Once upon a time he’d spend evenings in bars or nightclubs or just somewhere nowhere anywhere out in the middle of Seoul, probably finding or making trouble, but at some point back in November he’d stopped going out so much (for some reason - what had it been? he couldn’t remember now) and now staying in was a habit he wasn’t particularly interested in breaking.

And so it was that, at ten o’clock on a Wednesday evening in late April, he was sitting on Jae Shin’s white couch (the fanciest fucking couch) reading a book when the key turned in the lock and the door clicked open. The rustling noise of Jae Shin taking his jacket off and hanging it on the hook. The sound of his keys falling into the little bowl he kept by the front door. The double thump of his shoes coming off.

With his shoes off Jae Shin moved like a ghost, but still Yong Ha expected him to come into the apartment, sit down on the couch next to him, talk to him a little bit maybe. But he didn’t. There was that still, whispering quiet of someone moving without making very much noise at all, then just the sound of a cabinet creaking open. A glass being set down on the counter.

Yong Ha set his book down and stood up. “Shin?”

No reply.

He was being difficult. He was being difficult on purpose. Yong Ha rolled his eyes despite himself and wandered into the kitchen. Jae Shin stood at the sink with his back to the living room, facing the window with a glass of water in his hand, his only movement the telltale in and out of breath.

“Hey,” Yong Ha said. Leaned against the dining room table with his arms crossed over his chest. “How was dinner? Did your dad eat you alive?”

Jae Shin set the glass of water down in the sink. (He hadn’t drunk any of it. It was still full.) Leaned against the counter for a second as if to regain his balance before turning around. He looked -

Yong Ha stared at him. “Are you okay?”

With his shoes off Jae Shin moved like a ghost, easy and quick and silent, so Yong Ha barely had time to react before he was right there. He was right there and then his hands were around Yong Ha’s waist and then they were under the hem of Yong Ha’s shirt and he was picking him up, picking him up like he had back in December when Yong Ha had needed help off the counter, but this time instead of helping him down Jae Shin was picking him up and lifting him and pushing him until he was sitting on the table. He was sitting on the table so the three centimeters of difference between them was suddenly more like twelve and Jae Shin had to bend down over him to kiss him, to run his hands over the skin just under his shirt, to move against him rough and careful and careless and tentative and desperate.

Okay. Okay. Let’s keep a clear head for a minute. This was good! It was good. Yong Ha had started to wonder (somewhere deep in the back of his head) if Jae Shin was ever going to stop being quite so nervous, if he was ever going to stop being so afraid, if he was ever going to start taking risks. He hadn’t expected the catalyst to be dinner with his parents, of course, but Jae Shin worked in mysterious ways. (Or didn’t, as the case may have been.) Yong Ha couldn’t fault him for being nervous. He’d spent weeks trying to work out how this was ever going to happen, when this was ever going to happen, if this was ever going to happen, and had come up short every time.

But for just a second Jae Shin pulled away - two millimeters, three millimeters - and murmured, “Is this okay?”

“You’re an idiot,” Yong Ha managed to say (somehow), bringing his hands up to pull Jae Shin’s face back in. “God, look - you need me to ask if things are okay and that’s fine, I can do that, but I really, really need you to just _try things_ and I promise I’ll tell you if you need to stop. Please, please just kiss me.”

The first time Yong Ha had kissed him Jae Shin had been nervous and uncertain and (frankly) sort of bad at it, but now when Yong Ha pulled him in Jae Shin didn’t need to be pulled. He leaned in close, attentive, pressing, parting his lips slightly to slip his tongue into Yong Ha’s mouth. Tightened his hands on Yong Ha’s waist. Groaned a sighing breath like he couldn’t get enough oxygen, like he was trying to wake up, like he couldn’t think straight, and -

“Jesus,” Yong Ha choked out, wrapping his arms around Jae Shin’s shoulders, wrapping his legs around Jae Shin’s hips.

\- and he was picking Yong Ha up again, picking him up and bracing him and carrying him, curving up to keep kissing him. God, but Yong Ha had forgotten how damn strong he was; Yong Ha wasn’t exactly heavy, sure, but Jae Shin picked him up like he was almost nothing, carried him from the dining room through the living room to the bedroom without stopping to catch his breath, without stopping to adjust, without pulling his mouth from Yong Ha’s - not even when he bent over to lay Yong Ha on his back on the bed, catching his weight with one knee on the edge of the mattress.

There was a tiny part of Yong Ha that watched everything, that stayed calm and quiet and observant no matter how scary things got, no matter how exciting, no matter how stressful. That tiny part said: _Jae Shin is okay when he can control what’s happening._ That tiny part said: _Jae Shin is okay when he doesn’t feel trapped._ That tiny part said: _this can work. It can be okay._

The rest of him arched his back, slipped his hands under the hem of Jae Shin’s shirt, made the kind of noise so embarrassingly desperate that it might have killed him if he’d been capable of giving a single damn. “Please,” he said, because there wasn’t anything else he could think of to say but he had to say something, god damn it, he had to say something.

Jae Shin didn’t say anything, just dragged his hands up Yong Ha’s sides, up his ribcage, fingers catching on the hem of his t-shirt and pulling it up and over and off - and stopped, breathing hard, staring down at Yong Ha with the shirt still in his hands and his knee on the edge of the mattress and his face flushed.

“What?” Yong Ha pushed himself up on one arm, (brought his left hand up to cover his scar despite himself), watched the look on Jae Shin’s face. “Are you okay?”

“It just occurred to me,” Jae Shin said, throwing the shirt to one side and coming down over him (pushing him back, pushing him down), “how long I’ve wanted to do this.”

If he’d been able to think straight Yong Ha would have asked just how long, exactly, it had been that Jae Shin had wanted to do this (and what did he mean by ‘this’? Jae Shin was so inexperienced that could mean almost anything), but instead it turned out that Jae Shin was a lot better at kissing him than he had any right to be. How the hell? How? When did this happen? Unless he’d had some kind of clandestine sexual relationship in the three years of distance between them he had no fucking right to know how to kiss him like that. No fucking right at all.

Jae Shin brought one of his legs up between Yong Ha’s and pressed into him, insistent and careful, one hand holding himself up and the other trailing down Yong Ha’s chest, his ribs, his stomach - “You are so _rude,_ ” Yong Ha groaned, his hips arching up against Jae Shin's thigh of their own accord.

“You’re the worst,” Jae Shin murmured against his skin. Unbuttoned Yong Ha’s jeans. Slipped his hand under the elastic of Yong Ha’s boxers. “The absolute worst.”

“I’m the best.”

“You’re the best.” Jae Shin’s mouth was on his throat. Teeth against his collarbone. Breath on his shoulder. “You’re perfect.”

“I’m ruined.” The words came out of him without his consent, sighing up and out without permission. It took him half a second before he realized he’d said it, and then only because of the look of complete and sudden confusion on Jae Shin’s face as he pulled back. “Ignore me,” Yong Ha stammered out, waving a hand. “Bad joke. Bad timing. Don’t stop on my account.”

“Ruined?”

The blush started deep under his skin, under his muscles, inside his bones. “I just mean the scar,” he said, bringing his hand up to cover it again. “It was a bad joke. God, Shin, just -”

“You said it in French,” Jae Shin said. “You said it in French.”

“I didn’t mean that I’m actually -”

“You’re perfect,” Jae Shin said again. Carefully pulled Yong Ha’s hand away from the scar. Pressed his lips against it. “You’ve always been perfect, and rude, and perfect. Someone tried to kill you and it didn’t work. You’re perfect. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.”

He might have argued then. He might have agreed, preened and sighed and made much of himself. He might have pressed Jae Shin for more compliments to feed his ego, but instead Jae Shin bit gently into the skin of his chest. Slid his hand farther into his boxers. Wrapped his hand around Yong Ha’s dick like he knew what he was doing.

Jae Shin didn’t know what he was doing, that much was obvious. It wasn’t perfect and desperate like it had been with Jean-Baptiste, but then it wasn’t like anything else either. It was Jae Shin, Moon Jae Shin, and Yong Ha felt drunk, he felt stupid, he felt nothing at all like he ever had with Jean-Baptiste, with Myeong Shik, with anyone else.

“I don’t know how to do this,” Jae Shin said, pulling back. The look on his face was all nerves and uncertainty.

Yong Ha shuddered and sighed and looped his arms around Jae Shin’s shoulders. “Do it anyway.”

  
Jae Shin had never once thought of himself as having sexual instincts, but it must have been instinct that moved one hand to Yong Ha’s waist, that leaned in close, that pressed his lips to Yong Ha’s jaw (to his throat to his collarbone to his scar again and again and again), that tightened his hand around Yong Ha’s dick. He couldn't ever remember feeling like this, not once. He knew the ache and weight of needing release, how it grated on his nerves until he gave in and just dealt with it, but that was different. That was different. Here, now, with Yong Ha moving under him, breath catching in his throat, hands on his skin - there was an ache, sure, but no weight, and the ache was sharper and stronger and infinitely more insistent.

He couldn’t think about anything else. He couldn’t do anything else, and when he moved Yong Ha moved with him and stretched and breathed like… like nothing else. It wasn’t like anything else. There was nothing that could compare to it, and did he really want it any other way?

But for just a second Yong Ha stopped breathing - took in a deep inhale and then held it, muscles tight. Jae Shin bent over him. Slowed. Hesitated. “Are you okay?”

Yong Ha opened his eyes and looked at him, didn’t look at him, looked through him. “Yes,” he said, thick-tongued and breathless, and then - and then he arched up off the mattress slightly, breath caught in his throat, hands flexing against the sheet.

The sound that he made when he came was strangled and tight and desperate, higher than Jae Shin expected, better than Jae Shin expected, more than absolutely anything Jae Shin could have ever expected. It took more than Jae Shin had in him to keep from kissing him, to keep from catching that sound on his tongue and keeping it and holding it in his bones forever, so he didn’t try - just curved down into him and nudged his mouth open and kissed him as Yong Ha pulsed and lost control under his hand.

When it was over Jae Shin lay down on the bed next to Yong Ha. Slid his arm under Yong Ha’s head. Settled in close and pressed his lips to Yong Ha’s temple (sweat on his skin, salt and sweet on the tip of his tongue) and sighed against him.

“Could you get me some tissues or something?” Yong Ha said, after he’d caught his breath. His voice was hoarse, the words almost like a hiccup. “And do I want to know what that was about?”

Jae Shin groaned and pushed himself upright to grab a box of tissues from his nightstand. He handed it over and went quiet for a second before levering himself down onto the bed again. “Remember back on Christmas eve when you told me your dad doesn’t like me?”

“Yeah.” Yong Ha grimaced down at himself and pulled another handful of tissues out of the box. “He still doesn’t. Sorry.”

“My dad doesn’t like you much either. I think he blames you for the bakery, or at least for how successful it’s been.”

“I already knew that he doesn’t like me. And he’s not exactly wrong about that last part, if I do say so myself.” Yong Ha sighed and wiggled in tight. He wasn’t wearing a shirt (because Jae Shin had torn it off ten minutes ago - it was somewhere piled up against the wall) and he was starting to feel the chill. “Your mom loves me, though.”

“Neither of them like the bakery,” Jae Shin said. He pursed his lips. Hesitated. “I mean, my mom did, in the beginning. She thought it was a good idea for me to be doing something. But now with the police, and the stakeouts, and the surveillance…”

Yong Ha looked up at him. Jae Shin was propped up on his elbow, forearm under Yong Ha’s head, the other arm laid lazily across Yong Ha’s ribs in a way that was more protective than it was territorial. He was used to seeing Jae Shin nervous, used to seeing him worried, but now he was something else. Not nervous. Not worried. Just… irritated? Frustrated?

“They want you to forget it,” Yong Ha said.

“They keep telling me to let it go,” Jae Shin said. “Forget about it. Forgive myself.”

Yong Ha poked him thoughtfully on the chin. “I’ll agree with them on that last part.”

“And if my dad refers to you as ‘that fucking Gu kid’ again I think I might kill him.” Jae Shin swatted Yong Ha’s hand off his face. “Then you’ll be dating a perpetrator of patricide.”

“And what would I do,” Yong Ha mused, “if you went to prison for murder?”

“Find someone else to annoy, probably.”

“You’re the only person I feel like annoying.” Yong Ha made a face. “But is that it? You came home and ravished me because your parents are being frustrating? I mean, don’t get me wrong -” he waved a hand “- if that’s all it takes I wouldn’t mind if you ate dinner with your parents every day, but… it just seems a little odd.” He shot Jae Shin a curious look. “I feel like you’re not telling me everything, and at this point I’m inclined to trust my instincts on that sort of thing.”

“So imagine this,” Jae Shin said, lying back on the bed and sweeping his free hand in a broad gesture as though unveiling a landscape painting, “there I am, facing off against my parents. We’re eating risotto because my mom has been obsessed with Italy lately but my dad refuses to eat it with a fork so he’s eating it with a spoon and chopsticks.”

“God, he would.”

“My mom is practically in tears since she thought I’d opened the bakery because I’d finally gotten over what happened,” Jae Shin continued, “and my dad is furious because my mom is upset, and I haven’t actually gotten over what happened, and you’re involved somehow and that just makes everything that much worse as far as he’s concerned so he’s going off about how irritating you are -”

“Your dad always was an excellent judge of character.”

“- And throughout this whole ordeal,” Jae Shin went on, ignoring him, “throughout the _entire ordeal,_ you keep sending me texts about your dick. Or about mine,” he added thoughtfully, “which really just added another level of surreality to the entire experience, let me tell you.”

“Only two of them were even slightly sexual,” Yong Ha protested. “And one of them was an _accident._ ”

“All of them were from you.” Jae Shin closed his eyes. “All of them were really supportive. My dad kept talking about how bad you were, about how stupid the whole thing was, about how I needed to grow up and get my head on straight, and every time my phone buzzed it was you. Asking how I was doing, asking if I needed anything. Telling me that you’d make me a drink when I came home.”

Yong Ha turned his head to look at Jae Shin. His eyes were closed. He looked tired. He looked frustrated, the muscles around his eyes tight. The dim light in the bedroom made his skin look even more tan and smooth and perfect than it already was. Yong Ha reached up and gently pressed the backs of his fingers against Jae Shin’s cheek. He’d always been hot-blooded, both figuratively and literally, and right now was no exception. “Sorry,” he said. “I was planning on making you a drink but you kind of took me by surprise.”

That got him a grin. Jae Shin opened one of his eyes. “It’s all right. I liked that more than a drink.”

Yong Ha rolled over onto his stomach. Propped himself on his elbows. “So you spent your entire evening thinking about how great I was, and that’s why you couldn’t keep your hands off me once you got home? That’s what I’m gathering.”

Jae Shin groaned. “God, what have I done? You’re never going to shut up about this.”

Well, no. He probably wouldn’t. He’d be bringing this up on his deathbed, if he had anything to say about it. _Hey Shin, remember that one time you spent all night thinking about how great I was and then came home and attacked me with a handjob? Good times._ But he was here and it was now and they were lying in bed next to each other and Jae Shin had just gotten him off and all Yong Ha could think about was how ridiculous all of this was. It was all ridiculous, every single bit of it, and every few days, every few hours, every few minutes he remembered just how utterly fucking _ridiculous_ it was and had to sit down for a little bit to catch his breath.

“Do you know who my first love was?”

Jae Shin sighed. “Yong Ha…”

“Jae Shin.” Yong Ha leaned down over him. “I’m serious. Do you know?”

“I get you off and in return you quiz me on middle school history?” Jae Shin blinked up at the ceiling. “No, hold on. I actually think I might know this one. You were fourteen, had a huge crush on that one girl in calc or something. What was her name? Hyeon... Hyeon Ah? Hyeon Eun?”

This was ridiculous. It was ridiculous. “Fourteen? Try eleven.”

Jae Shin fixed him with a look, curious and confused. “Eleven? I don't remember any girls when you were -”

“God.” Yong Ha groaned and wrapped an arm over his waist. “You’re so stupid. Why am I with someone so fucking stupid? I’m talking about _you,_ Shin. When we met for the first time I was eleven and you were amazing. Remember when you asked if this was the way I’d always been? I didn’t even know it was possible to like boys until you showed up.”

Jae Shin watched him for a second. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

Yong Ha made a face and shrugged with one shoulder. “I thought that… you wouldn’t like it. That you’d leave.” He hesitated. “Being friends with you wasn’t worth the risk.”

“Why are you telling me this now?”

“To give you return ammunition.” He grinned. “You’re right, I’m never going to shut up about this. But at least now you can come back with Yeah, But You Were In Love With Me For Sixteen Years.”

Jae Shin seemed to ponder this for a second. “So when you called me stupid for not being sure if you liked me…”

“Shut up.” Yong Ha pinched him at the soft part of his waist. “Yes, all right, yes. That’s why I said that. You’re horrible. And great. And incredibly attractive, which is rude, and -”

“Why did you say you were ruined?”

Yong Ha stuttered to a stop. “What?”

“I told you that you were perfect,” Jae Shin said, eyes closed, head laid back against the mattress, one arm around Yong Ha’s shoulders. “Not the smartest decision I’ve ever made, granted, but I told you that you were perfect. And you said that you were ruined.”

“It was just a bad joke, I wasn’t -”

“And you said it in French.” Jae Shin opened his eyes. Stared up at the ceiling, mouth tight. “Did Jean-Baptiste tell you that? That you’re ruined?”

Yong Ha groaned. “You’re gonna get me off and then ask probing questions about my myriad failed relationships? This is way worse than quizzing you on middle school history, Shin. A thousand times worse. A million.”

“Did he?” Jae Shin rolled over onto his side, mouth tight.

“… Yeah,” Yong Ha said after a second. “I don’t… I think he was trying to say something different, but I didn’t have the vocabulary for it, or -”

“You’re not. You’re fine.” He took a deep breath. “Have I mentioned that I’m going to kill him if I ever see him again?”

“A few times,” Yong Ha said. “Please don’t. What am I gonna do if you go to prison for murder? Who’s going to come home and jack me off?” Turned his head and squinted at the digital clock on Jae Shin’s night stand. “God. I should take a shower and go to bed.”

Jae Shin pressed his lips to Yong Ha’s jaw, to his temple. “Can I come?”

“No.” Yong Ha laughed, putting a hand over his face. “ _No,_ it’s past ten and you told the sea cucumber you’d relieve him at eleven.”

Jae Shin sat up quickly, head whipping around to stare at the clock. “Oh, fuck.”

“It’s okay, you probably have time to get there.” Yong Ha sighed. “God, you don’t even want to know what the kids pulled on me today.”

Jae Shin had gotten up off the bed and was standing in front of the dresser, unbuttoning his gray oxford. (Yong Ha couldn’t help but feel dimly annoyed that he’d missed his chance to unbutton it for him.) “Did you deserve it?”

“What?” He paused. “Okay, yeah. That’s fair. And I guess I kind of deserved it, but you didn’t. I think. Well, maybe you -”

“What do you mean, I didn’t deserve it? What did they do?”

“They’ve been _betting,_ ” Yong Ha said, pushing himself upright with a groan. “On whether or not you and I used to date. 50,000 won! Jesus.”

Jae Shin froze in the middle of shouldering out of his shirt. “They _what?_ ” He seemed to consider this for a second. “Who won?”

“Kim Yoon Shik, of course. You think the cucumber would be able to tell that kind of thing?” Yong Ha rolled his eyes. “For as smart as he is he can’t read social cues worth a damn. He’s lucky Yoon Shik’s never poked his eyes out in a fit of pique.”

“That’s disgusting.”

Yong Ha shrugged. “A boy can dream.”

“Wait, so how long has this bet been going?”

“Five months, to hear Yoon Shik tell it.”

“Five months?” Jae Shin rubbed a hand over his face. “They’ve been gambling over us? For five months. Jesus christ. I can’t… that’s ridiculous.” He glared at the shirt in his hands, mouth working. “These have been some of the most emotionally draining months of my damn life and they’ve been _betting._ ”

“Shin -”

Jae Shin shook his head. “Fuck being on time.” He dropped the shirt on the floor, came back toward the bed, pushed Yong Ha gently back onto the mattress. “The cucumber can wait. I waited sixteen years for this.”

For a second Yong Ha thought about arguing with him but instead Jae Shin bent down and kissed him. “Okay,” he said. “He can wait.”

 

At seven minutes past eleven o’clock the front door of the bakery swung open and the old brass bell clonked out its familiarly horrible tone and Moon Jae Shin stepped over the threshold. Scuffed the mud off his shoes. Hung his coat next to the door.

“You’re late,” Lee Seon Joon said behind the counter, not looking up from the law school textbook open on the granite.

“And you’re a shitty gambler,” Jae Shin shot back.

Seon Joon’s head shot up. “What?”

“Did you think Yong Ha wouldn’t tell me?” Jae Shin rolled his eyes. “Go home, sea cucumber. Try watching some dramas sometime. You might learn something. Oh, and -”

Seon Joon stopped in the door, face pale. “Yes?”

“- I’ll be late tomorrow, too. I’m going on a date.” Jae Shin grinned at him. “I trust that won’t be a problem? From what I hear you’re a little short on cash lately.”

“Yes,” Seon Joon said. Swallowed. “A little.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IN THE NEXT CHAPTER THEY'RE GOING ON A DATE!! I'm so excited!!!! (Maybe I should finish editing it if I'm gonna be this excited about it. Hmm...)


	18. The Second Date

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A MAJOR PART of this chapter was inspired directly by an anonymous asker over on [my tumblr](http://budgiebazooka.tumblr.com/post/114321198328/i-really-really-love-your-vintage-bakery-fic) so they get ALL THE CREDIT for that. Was it you??
> 
> The movie they went to on their first date was A Frozen Flower, the first movie Song Joong Ki was in, in 2008 - 7 years ago from when I wrote this. I was thinking of doing a film that Yoo Ah In was in in 2008 but, uh... that was Antique Bakery. And that's a little too twee, even for me.

* * *

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 17:12, April 26**

What day is it?

* * *

**From: Gu Yong Ha**  
**Sent: 17:13, April 26**

Are you drunk? It’s Thursday.

* * *

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 17:14, April 26**

Exactly. Come outside and get in the car. I’m taking you on an actual real date.

* * *

**From: Gu Yong Ha**  
**Sent: 17:16, April 26**

Be still my beating heart. You’re so romantic, Shin.

* * *

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 17:16, April 26**

Shut up. You’re the worst.

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 17:16, April 26**

Where are you?

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 17:16, April 26**

Come outside. I miss you.

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 17:18, April 26**

You’re taking forever.

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 17:21, April 26**

I’m going to leave.

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 17:24, April 26**

I’m leaving! I’m leaving right now!

**From: Moon Jae Shin**  
**Sent: 17:27, April 26**

I didn’t leave. Are you coming out?

* * *

 

Yong Ha opened the passenger side door of Jae Shin’s car. “You’re ridiculous,” he said.

“You took an _hour_ ,” Jae Shin protested, still holding his cell phone. “What were you doing in there? Taking a nap? Showering? Constructing a scale model of Seoul?”

“Definitely that last one,” Yong Ha replied, closing the door and reaching over his shoulder for the seat belt. “And it was ten minutes, not an hour. You texted while I was still finishing up dishes, and anyway I had to say goodbye to the kids.” He sighed and leaned back against the seat. “I think they’re finally dating.”

“Someone around here should have a chance to date,” Jae Shin said darkly, turning the key in the ignition. “I’ve been trying to go on a damn date for an _hour_.”

“Ten minutes.” Yong Ha grinned at him. “Are you…? No. Are you nervous?”

Jae Shin grimaced. “No. I am absolutely not nervous.”

“You’re acting like you’re nervous. What are we doing on this date, anyway?”

 

So here was the thing about going on dates: Moon Jae Shin had never gone on a single date in his entire life.

His mother had (for a brief and mortifying period consisting of roughly three weeks, three utterly hellish weeks) attempted to set him up on several blind dates but they hadn’t gone _poorly_ so much as they simply hadn’t ended up happening at all. He supposed that the women had probably shown up to whatever godforsaken restaurant or coffee shop or, god forbid, bar his mother had selected as the ideal backdrop for his inevitable humiliation; he supposed that the women had probably all been quite lovely; he supposed that none of them rightly deserved to be stood up, one after another, without justifiable cause or explanation.

He had momentarily considered some kind of Coffee Prince gambit and finding an agreeably impoverished kid to stand in as some kind of boyfriend to get him out of it. Had he known Kim Yoon Shik back then he might have ended up asking him, but he hadn’t, so he didn’t, and as it was he just avoided every single date like the plague until his mother stopped trying to bend him to her formidable will.

Seven years ago, when he’d been about to enter his third year at university and Gu Yong Ha had just graduated high school, he’d shown up at the Gu family apartment in his mom’s car with two tickets to some vaguely historical film and when he’d leaned on the doorbell and Yong Ha had slammed open the door (not quite as viciously as Yong Ha’s mother would have done, but nearly) and they’d bolted to the car Yong Ha’s older brother (Yong Jo? Yong Ho, maybe? The twins were nearly identical in every aspect, their horribleness included) had leaned out one of the windows and screamed: “have fun on your date, maknae!”

Yong Ha had flipped him off with both hands and tumbled into the passenger side of the car, slammed the door, leaned over Jae Shin to grab his door and slam it closed as well, laid a hugely exaggerated kiss on Jae Shin’s cheek, and yelled, “let’s get the fuck out of this hellhole!” right into his ear.

Unfortunately this meant that the only first-person experience Jae Shin had ever had with anything that resembled ‘dating’ mostly involved screaming out of windows, flipping people off, getting Italian food in Itaewon for the very first time (how much cheese did Italians _eat_ , anyway? christ), and then sitting through half of an incredibly depressing movie filled with gay kings and suicide attempts and more murder than you could shake several sticks at until, of course, Yong Ha got sick right around the point where the protagonist was being castrated horribly and had to go throw up in the bathroom. (Jae Shin had an exceptionally vivid memory of leaning against the tiled wall of the bathroom listening to Yong Ha whine between each pitiful heave about how next time _he_ was going to pick the movie, and then the movie after that one, and then every other movie after that for the rest of their lives.)

But if there was anything Moon Jae Shin was good at it was a) panicking and b) avoidance, which meant that on that sunny Thursday morning when Yong Ha had settled in close against him and announced decisively that they would go on an Actual Real Date in two weeks he immediately took the opportunity to plan absolutely nothing whatsoever and instead just descend slowly into existential dread.

But on Wednesday night he’d sat through hours of his father (which was bad enough on its own) who seemed hellbent on talking him out of every single goddamn thing that kept him calm, kept him sane, kept him going, kept him alive. He’d spent three hours watching moisture condense on the outside of his mother’s wine glass. Watching the risotto slowly cool. Watching the last vestiges of doubt he’d kept tucked away in his bones dissipate into nothing.

Yong Ha got into his car. Closed the door. Reached for the seatbelt. He was wearing black skinny jeans, black boots, a gray t-shirt, a black jacket that fit perfectly as if it had been made for him (come to think of it, maybe it had been) and he looked… he looked like he always did. Pale and perfect and rude and incredible, but most importantly he was _there_ and he was grinning at Jae Shin like he had some kind of horrible, wicked secret. “Are you nervous?”

“No,” Jae Shin lied. “I am absolutely not nervous.”

Yong Ha (that damn kid) laughed at him. Sat back against the seat. “You’re acting like you’re nervous. What are we doing on this date, anyway?”

Jae Shin stomped on the clutch and shifted into reverse. “I’m letting you pick the movie,” he said, “that’s for sure.”

 

“Itaewon,” Yong Ha said. The sun was starting to go down and the April evening was starting to go cool and Yong Ha stood on the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on Jae Shin and a stupid, curling grin on his face. “You’re learning so fast! My little gay padawan.”

“Don’t,” Jae Shin hissed at him. “I’m not your gay padawan.”

“Okay, yeah, sure,” Yong Ha replied, cocking his head to one side and narrowing his eyes, not really conceding the point at all, “but you are _sort of_ my gay padawan. There’s all this secret gay knowledge that you need to know about! Where the best bars are, how to dress, where to go if you don’t want to get beaten up…”

“I don’t want to go to any bars.” Jae Shin wrapped his hand around Yong Ha’s wrist (his right wrist - he hadn’t managed to forget the sound Yong Ha’s vertebrae had made that one time back in November when Yong Ha had held out his arm and convinced Jae Shin to pull on his wrist) and pulled him along the sidewalk. “I like the way I dress, and I’d like to see anybody try beating you up when I’m around.”

Yong Ha pulled a fake swoon, pressing the back of his left hand against his forehead and fluttering his eyelashes. “You’re so heroic, Shin. How do you stand it, being tougher and manlier than everyone else in Korea? Is it hard? Lonely, perhaps, way up there on your imperial pedestal?”

“I should have left you in the car.”

“We are on a _date_.” Yong Ha twisted his wrist a little in Jae Shin’s grip, not really enough to slip free but just enough to register his annoyance. “You’re not supposed to leave your _date_ in the _car_. I’m not a dog.”

“You’re not supposed to leave your dog in the car either,” Jae Shin replied absently, peering down every block they passed. Down one of these little streets was a funny little restaurant with an odd sign and a set of brick steps leading down to the front door and when you stepped inside everything smelled like bread and butter and wine and warmth, but hell if he could remember which of these damn streets it was. “And you’re slightly more important than a dog.”

“Slightly?!”

“Dogs are important.”

Yong Ha stopped short on the sidewalk, and Jae Shin practically dislocated his own shoulder coming to a stop. Yong Ha was looking at him with a funny look on his face, somewhere between amusement and awe and furious accusation. “What?” Jae Shin said.

“You aren’t,” Yong Ha said slowly. “You’re not. You couldn’t be. Are you…?”

“Comparing you to a dog?” Jae Shin flinched. “Not… seriously. You’re not a dog. You’re far more important than a dog. Even a really important dog.” He swallowed. “Am I in trouble?”

It turned out that he hadn’t really been pulling Yong Ha along after all because it didn’t even take half a second for Yong Ha to slip free and sidestep around him. (Was he ever really going to have a handle on Yong Ha? It was a stupid question: the answer was always going to be no.) “You are,” Yong Ha said, standing at the corner ahead of him and staring, flabbergasted, down the next block. He turned, shook his head, gave Jae Shin that same look again (amusement and awe and fury and something that could maybe be shocked appreciation). “I can’t believe you sometimes, you know that? I can’t believe you at all. Ever. Who are you? Did you kill Moon Jae Shin and skin him to make yourself an elaborate Moon Jae Shin costume?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Jae Shin caught up with him and looked down the street. Somewhere down one of these little streets, he _knew,_ was a funny little restaurant with an odd sign and a set of brick steps leading down to the front door and when you stepped inside everything smelled like bread and butter and wine and warmth, but that morning when he’d driven through Itaewon to find it (again, again, after all these years) he hadn’t thought to consider parking - which was why when he’d picked Yong Ha up from work they’d ended up having to walk nearly an entire kilometer before Yong Ha clued in to where they were, slipped out of his grasp, glared at him with that funny look of amusement and awe and fury and (something that could maybe be) shocked appreciation.

“We haven’t been to this place in seven years,” Yong Ha said. “I can’t believe it’s still here. I can’t believe you remembered.”

“It’s under new management,” Jae Shin said. “It might not be the same -”

“You remembered?” Yong Ha said again.

“- but I looked up the menu online and they still have that calzone thing you liked.”

“You _remembered,”_ Yong Ha said a third time. He gave Jae Shin a shellshocked look. “The only reason _I_ remember this place is because I used to work in Itaewon and I had to walk by it every day. I can’t believe you _remembered._ Have you even been here in the last seven years?”

“Just this morning,” Jae Shin said. Bit his tongue. “I mean - I just drove by it, I didn’t go in. I didn’t think it would still be in the same place -”

“How the hell did you remember?” Yong Ha shook his head. “ _Why_ did you remember?”

Jae Shin shrugged. “It’s hard to forget. We came here on our first date.”

 

“This is way nicer than I remember it being,” Yong Ha hissed over the table to Jae Shin.

“New management,” Jae Shin hissed back. “Remember? I said before.”

“Yeah, but seven years ago you had to order at the front off of a big menu and they brought it to you on a plastic tray -”

“Shhh!” Jae Shin panicked and waved a hand desperately. “They’re looking at us!”

“Maybe they remember us,” Yong Ha mused, leaned back in his chair and crossing his arms thoughtfully over his chest. He’d hung his jacket on the back of his chair and god, that goddamn gray t-shirt fit him way too well. “Was that the time you accidentally set the napkin on fire?”

“No, that was right after _my_ high school graduation, not yours.” Jae Shin rubbed a hand over his face. “Remember? My parents took everybody out to that one restaurant in Gangnam, with those little -”

“And anyway what did you mean, we came here on our first date?”

Jae Shin looked up. Yong Ha was lit up by the flickering oil lamp on the table between them, his face very carefully blank in that way he had sometimes. The only indication of mood was in the slight quirk at the inner corners of his eyes behind his glasses, the almost imperceptible pursing of his lips, the telltale way his eyebrows seemed to come together just a little bit. His left arm was stretched out on the table in front of him, though, not tucked in close against his ribs - so he was curious but not worried. That was good, at least.

“It was just a joke,” Jae Shin said, grimacing. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m not worried,” Yong Ha said mildly, leaning on his elbow against the table, holding the fingers of his right hand out over the lamp flame to catch the oily smoke on his fingertips. “Just an odd way for you to put it. You’re a man of few words, Moon Jae Shin, and when what words you do end up choosing turn out to be so charged with meaning _en potentia_ -” He glanced up and grinned. “Well, I can’t help but wonder.”

For a second Jae Shin could see the Yong Ha from the night before in the back of his head, (the Yong Ha who looked at him, didn’t look at him, looked through him), and - god - was this what other people felt like all the time? He’d kissed Yong Ha for the first time just a few weeks ago and he hadn’t been able to think straight since. (Well, okay, maybe he hadn’t thought straight for a long time before that. Yong Ha would probably tell him that he’d never managed to think straight before in his entire life.) But now Yong Ha was across the table from him in the soft, warm, familiar light of a restaurant they’d visited back before anything had gone wrong (back before everything had gone right) asking him questions about what he _meant_ and _word choices_ and _life decisions_ and meanwhile the only thing Jae Shin could think about was the sound Yong Ha made when he came.

“Wonder what?” Jae Shin said, coming back to himself and shifting awkwardly in his seat.

Yong Ha rolled his eyes. “Wonder what you _meant,_ jackass. Remember a billion years ago when I asked you what you meant? It would be a funny way for anyone to put it, and you’re not just anyone.”

“Your brother,” Jae Shin hazarded. He reached out, twisted his wine glass around on the tablecloth by a few degrees. “I came to pick you up because my mom had given me her tickets to A Frozen Flower after my aunt canceled -”

“Fuuuck,” Yong Ha hissed between his teeth, covering his eyes with a hand. “Never mention that movie in my presence again. I still have nightmares about the castration scene.”

“- and your brother made fun of you. Do you remember?” Yong Ha opened one eye to look at him and Jae Shin just shook his head. “It stuck with me. I’m not sure why. You probably don’t -”

“I just about killed him for that,” Yong Ha interrupted suddenly, and - what, was that a blush rising on his face or was it just the damn atmosphere lighting in here? “God, the twins, they - I don’t think you knew about it, or at least I really really hoped you didn’t - they had this running joke that you and I were dating. They never let me hear the end of it. It was always ‘hey maknae, where’s your boyfriend?’ or ‘where’s the couple ring, maknae?’ or ‘do you think he’s going to propose at prom like in Boys Over Flowers?’” Yong Ha leaned back in his chair, eyes rolling upward in mildly painful recollection. “I think that last one was all Yong Ho. Yong Jo never would have come up with a narrative that complex.”

Jae Shin stared at him. “They thought I was your boyfriend? All of them?”

“The _twins_ , I said.” Yong Ha made a face. “Yong Jun was in the army for my last two years of high school and Yong Gi was already married and out of the house by then.” He paused. Picked up his water glass. “I think my mom might have known about it. Them. The twins.” An odd look came over his face as he brought the glass to his mouth. “She never said anything, though.”

“I have to admit,” Jae Shin said after a second, “I’d never have expected either of them to be quite so good at prophecy.” A noise from the other side of the table made him look up. "Are you okay?"

Yong Ha shook his head and waved a hand in a desperate gesture of dismissal, setting his glass of water down and scrambling for his napkin. “Prophecy,” he said finally, after he’d coughed up nearly an entire lung into the square of white cotton. “The twins. Oh my god.”

“Maybe they’re psychic.”

“Please,” Yong Ha choked out. “Stop saying ridiculous things. You’re going to kill me, and I haven’t had a chance to renew my life insurance.”

“Don’t die,” Jae Shin said. “If you died I would be sad.”

“Eat your damn food and stop being horrible.”

 

Moon Jae Shin stood on the sidewalk outside of the restaurant, sucking thoughtfully on one of the peppermint candies they’d had in a little dish on the host’s stand. The sun had gone down half an hour ago and the air was cooling rapidly so he crammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and rocked back and forth slightly on his heels, trying to keep the blood flowing. Yong Ha was still inside the restaurant, using the restroom - or trying to finagle the recipe for their tiramisu out of the hands of the pastry chef, more likely - and the restaurant was small enough on the inside that Jae Shin thought he might explode (or perhaps _im_ plode, like an extremely small black hole formed entirely out of a super-dense cluster of anxiety) if he had to spend one more minute just standing there and taking up space.

Itaewon on a Thursday evening, even still relatively early as it was, was busy and ridiculous. Off the main drag wasn’t so bad - there were places to stand where people weren’t shouldering into you all the damn time, at any rate - but he wasn’t exactly hidden from sight. For once he wasn’t nervous about it, though. For once he thought he could probably be okay if someone recognized him on the side of the road. What could hurt him?

"… Moon Jae Shin?”

The voice curled into him like a corkscrew into a wine bottle, twisting through each of his most vital organs slow and careful and intentional. What could hurt him? It didn’t seem fair, that there was one thing on earth that could possibly get to him at this very moment (that was a lie, there was more than one thing - but this one was right up there) and the universe had somehow deigned to align it perfectly with him here, now, with Yong Ha so dangerously close and yet so horribly far away.

Jae Shin turned, slightly - not a lot, just a little, just enough to acknowledge the speaker and catch a glimpse of them out of the corner of his eye - and squared his shoulders to mask the way every one of his muscles tied themselves into knots trying to escape.

“Corporal Lim,” Jae Shin said mildly. “I didn’t expect to see you outside of your normal station in the bowels of hell.”

Corporal Lim Byeong Chun, the primary instigator of Jae Shin’s military torment, stood relaxed and confident about two meters away with an odd, cold smile curling over his face. Lim had finished his conscription two months before Jae Shin had gone home, and from the looks of it he had done rather well for himself. “Funny you should say that,” Lim said. “Itaewon is just about exactly where I’d expect to see you. Homo Hill is a few blocks to the east, though - did you get lost?”

For a second Jae Shin really, really wanted a cigarette. Something to hold on to. Something to keep his hands from shaking. “No,” he said instead, digging his fists even deeper into his jean pockets, moving the peppermint from his right cheek to his left. “I’m exactly where I intended to be.”

“And are you here with anyone?” Lim cocked his head to one side. Arched one eyebrow. “Your boyfriend, maybe?”

What the hell was he supposed to say to that? He couldn’t deny it. He _wouldn’t_ deny it. He _was_ here with his boyfriend (his boyfriend? was that what Yong Ha was now? Jesus Christ) and hell if he was going to let Lim Byeong Chun, of all people, take that away from him. “I am here with someone,” Jae Shin said, willing his voice not to shake. “But it’s none of your -”

“What are you doing?”

The look on Lim’s face froze solid as his eyes slid from Jae Shin’s face to somewhere off to his left. “Oh,” he said, in a small voice.

Jae Shin looked over his shoulder, down the steps of the restaurant. Yong Ha was standing on the first step, the door still swinging closed behind him, his head cocked curiously, a look of confusion and what could only be called annoyance on his face, and no. No, god damn it, no, this wasn’t how this was going to go. Lim had done enough already, he wasn’t going to give him the opportunity to mess with Yong Ha too. “Yong Ha,” he said quickly, gesturing awkwardly to try to shoo him away. “Listen, I’ll take care of this, you should just -”

“I can’t _believe_ that you would pull this kind of stunt,” Yong Ha said, interrupting him, but he wasn’t looking at Jae Shin. He was looking at Lim, mouth twisting, ascending the stairs like the god of the underworld furious and all-powerful. His hand came up as he strode past Jae Shin and he jabbed an accusing forefinger at Lim. “Are you ever going to take a hint? Are you just going to start showing up everywhere?”

“Who is this?” Lim said, recovering slightly. “Who is he to you?”

Jae Shin opened his mouth to reply, but Yong Ha got to it first. “This is Jae Shin,” he spat, “and he’s the only person here who has a chance with me. Shin,” Yong Ha said, turning toward him, “this is Lim Byeong Chun. He’s some asshole who’s been trying to sleep with me for over a year.”

“Um,” Lim said.

“He’s _what?”_ Jae Shin felt very, very strongly as though somewhere here that had to be something that made sense. One single shred of a reality he could recognize, but hell if he could find it. “Lim Byeong Chun? He’s -”

“ _This_ is who you ran off to back in December?” Lim was saying to Yong Ha. He took a step forward. “I bought you all of those drinks and then you just _left_ and I haven’t seen you out since. _This_ is the guy you were so worried about?”

“Of course he is,” Yong Ha spat out. “We’ve known each other for sixteen years.”

“Okay,” Jae Shin cut in, “hold on. Just hold on a second. _He_ -” He pointed at Lim. “- has been trying to sleep with _you_ -” He pointed at Yong Ha. “- for over a year?”

“Yes,” Yong Ha said. “Didn’t I just say that?” He narrowed his eyes. “Why? Do you know him?”

“No,” Lim said quickly. “He’s never met me before in his life.”

“Yes,” Jae Shin said. “This is Corporal Lim Byeong Chun. Five and a half years ago I came back to base after my first furlough, and he found out I didn’t have a girlfriend and had only visited you -”

“Look,” Lim said, “that was a long time ago, I didn’t -”

“- then he made absolutely certain that my life was hell until I left the military.”

If Jae Shin didn’t know any better he’d have thought that Yong Ha was too shocked to think straight - his face was completely blank, his eyes unblinking, his breathing slow and calm and even - but he knew better. He knew a lot better, and he knew that it wasn’t shock that had left Yong Ha like this. It was the gears in his head clicking and whirring up to speed, processing the information faster than Jae Shin could rightly comprehend, figuring out what to do about it.

“Okay,” Yong Ha said. “Okay.” He paused. “Let me get this straight.”

“I’m not gay,” Lim said, holding up a hand. “It’s just you.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot.” Yong Ha made a face. “Let me tell you something right now, Lim Byeong Chun. Jae Shin and I weren’t together five and a half years ago. He and I weren’t together when you and I met. He and I weren’t together back in December when you bought me seven drinks at Hive and tried to guilt me into sleeping with you for the millionth time -”

“He _what?”_ Fury rose hot and curling in Jae Shin’s throat. “He tried to _guilt_ you into sleeping with him?”

“- and the reason I’ve never slept with you has _never_ been because I was with someone else,” Yong Ha continued, ignoring Jae Shin for a second. “But today - right now - Jae Shin and I are together. We are on a date. We are on a date and you are _bothering_ us.”

“He’s no good for you,” Lim stuttered out. “I could -”

“No.”

Oh shit. “Oh _shit_ ,” Jae Shin said quietly, and took an involuntary step back.

“No,” Yong Ha said again, advancing on Lim. “You know who’s no good for me? It’s you, you piece of absolute shit. You think you could even come close? You think you could be even half as good?”

In his day-to-day life Gu Yong Ha put a lot of effort into making himself look delicate and harmless and sophisticated and (perhaps) just a little bit ridiculous. Jae Shin had always figured it was something of a defense mechanism, the kind of mechanism you come up with when you’re the youngest of five brothers and the smartest (and shortest) kid in your class and between being beaten up every damn day and making yourself out to be too silly to be worth the trouble he’d probably have chosen the same way.

But it wasn’t a defense mechanism, was it? Watching Yong Ha advance on Lim now, time seemed to slow down enough for Jae Shin to consider what, exactly, he’d seen of Yong Ha needing help taking care of himself. Sixteen years ago, sure, but that was against six bigger kids that only lost to Jae Shin because he’d had the element of surprise on his side. But since then - there had been Jean-Baptiste, but that was different - Jae Shin had just assumed that no one was going to mess with Yong Ha when he was right there by his side.

It wasn’t a defense mechanism. It was just who he was - appearing delicate and harmless and sophisticated and perhaps just a little bit ridiculous - and he was like that because he wanted to be. It wasn’t a defense mechanism at all. He had other, much more effective ways to defend himself.

Jae Shin had never once seen Yong Ha raise a hand in violence. Seeing it for the first time turned out to be terrifying.

His form was perfect. The way he curled his fingers into his palm was carefully structured to maximize damage dealt and minimize damage received. He drew his right arm back and drove from the shoulder and when his fist connected with Lim Byeong Chun’s god damn face Jae Shin knew that Lim wasn’t going to recover any time soon.

“I hope you enjoyed that,” Yong Ha said, his back to Jae Shin, his face turned down toward Lim. “It’s the only time you’ll ever touch me.”

Yong Ha stepped over Lim’s prone form where he lay hunched over on the sidewalk, holding his jaw, and turned the corner.

“I guess you were right about me,” Jae Shin said, carefully sidestepping Lim. “I was in love with my best friend. Funny that you ended up in love with him too.”

“He doesn’t belong to you,” Lim managed to say. Blood was starting to trickle out the side of his mouth. “He could still -”

“No.” Jae Shin grinned. “He doesn’t belong to me. He doesn’t belong to anybody. He’s Gu Yong Ha. He belongs to himself.”

 

Yong Ha was pacing on the side of the street, full of fire and electricity and static, when Jae Shin finally caught up to him. “That son of a bitch,” Yong Ha hissed. His hand hurt like hell and his heartbeat was going a thousand beats per minute and he felt like he was about to vibrate out of his skin if he didn’t lie down somehow, somewhere, anywhere. “That son of a _bitch_. It was him? It was him this whole time, this whole thing was _his fucking fault_ , and then he has the fucking _gall_ -”

“That was fantastic,” Jae Shin interrupted, strangely breathless. “That was incredible.”

It had to have been the adrenalin still roaring through his veins that made Yong Ha almost want to hit Jae Shin too, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to. “Careful,” he said, shaking out the fingers of his right hand. Hell, but it had been years since the last time he’d hauled off like that. He’d almost forgotten how much it hurt. Lim had been a lot less sturdy than the last person he’d hit, at least. He’d gone down easy and didn’t get back up.

“I’m not making fun of you.” Jae Shin reached out, took Yong Ha’s hand, brought it up to inspect his knuckles. They were skinned a little where they’d connected with Lim’s teeth, and Yong Ha didn’t have to be a doctor to know that there’d be a bruise forming soon enough. (How many times had he patched up Jae Shin after a particularly disappointing scuffle? He could probably take a nursing certification test with his eyes closed and pass with 80% or better by now.) “That was amazing. When did you learn to throw a punch like that?”

“You weren’t the only one in the military, you know.” Yong Ha took a deep breath. A second. A third. Swallowed his nerves. “I...” He hesitated. Tried flashing Jae Shin a grin, but could tell it was unsteady and unbelievable. “Sorry about that. I guess I don’t know my own strength.”

But then Jae Shin looked up at him, both hands still holding his right hand, and the look on his face was - it was disbelief, it was awe, it was astonishment - his eyes wide, his lips slightly parted as if about to speak, the beginning of a grin at one corner of his mouth. “That was incredible,” he said again, and his voice was tight and low. “Do you know how many times I’ve wanted to do that?”

“I’ll bet you’ve done it more than once.”

“Never worked, though.” Jae Shin laughed (just a little bit - more a wry exhale than anything) and shook his head in one quick movement. “That was incredible.”

“You keep saying that.” Yong Ha’s heartbeat was still racing, still thudding hard and quick in his chest, but it was more than adrenalin now. “Haven’t you ever seen somebody get punched in the face before?”

“Sure, but -”

“Didn’t you say I got to pick the movie?”

That odd expression again (mostly disbelief this time) when Jae Shin looked at him. “Yeah. The theater is just a few -”

“No.” Yong Ha twisted his arm in Jae Shin’s hands, wrapped his fingers around one of Jae Shin’s wrists. Took a step back. “I don’t want to go to a movie theater. None of the movies are good right now. I want to watch something else. I want to do something else.”

“We could go home,” Jae Shin hazarded, losing his balance in more ways than one, staggering forward as Yong Ha adjusted his weight and pulled. “We could -”

“I don’t feel like going home.” They were moving now. Jae Shin twisted his wrist in Yong Ha’s grip but couldn’t quite manage to pull free. “We’re going somewhere else.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know yet.” Yong Ha turned and flashed Jae Shin his most dazzling grin. “I’ll know it when I see it.”


	19. Extremely Good

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's actual smut in this chapter, everybody. There's actual real smut and this is my life now. I am a person who not only has written smut but also has put it on the internet. (Just let me say right now that I _firmly believe_ that Moon Jae Shin's lips were made by God for the express purpose of suckin' dick.)
> 
> If you don't want to read smut but you want to read some ridiculous pre-smut banter then you should stop about where Yong Ha says "look, not to be weird or anything" because right after that there's some penis action. PENIS. ACTION. 
> 
> Now if you'll excuse me I have to go lie down in a dark room and think about my life choices.

“Yong Ha. This is a DVD room.”

“You told me I got to pick the movie.”

“I was expecting to give you a choice of maybe a dozen at most. This is ridiculous.”

Yong Ha wandered down the long hallway, key card in one hand, inspecting the number on every smoked-glass door they passed. “I don’t appreciate not being given the full range of options. You should know this by now. I’m a hedonist. It’s not my fault you’re practically an ascetic.”

“I don’t think ascetics drink alcohol,” Jae Shin countered, following awkwardly in Yong Ha’s wake. (Was he allowed to be ashamed of how fucking turned on he’d been by the way Yong Ha had punched Lim full in the face? Of how fucking turned on he still was?) “I can’t believe you took me to a DVD room. A DVD room in the middle of Itaewon. The ajumma at the front thinks we’re gay. Did you see the way she winked at me? She _winked_ at me, Yong Ha.”

“Well, she’s not exactly wrong, is she? Heyooo, room 11, this is us.” Yong Ha scrambled with the lock, throwing a self-satisfied grin at Jae Shin over his shoulder. “You’re going to have to get used to gay stuff, Shin.”

“What,” Jae Shin said, pushing the thought of Yong Ha (that look of blank fury on his face, his arm pulled back like the hammer of a pistol) to the back of his head, “like… fashion? Drinking fruity drinks?”

“Eh, I was talking more about the systemic discrimination, lack of civil rights, institutionalized prejudice, that sort of thing,” Yong Ha replied, grabbing Jae Shin’s wrist again and hauling him along into the darkened room. “But sure, fashion and fruity drinks. Let’s start with that, work our way up to the culture of homophobia endemic in South Korea.”

“Endemic…?”

Yong Ha closed the door. Leaned against it. Closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. Looked at Jae Shin in the dim light of the room and… and just looked at him, his eyes just a little bit wide, lips parted.

The room was a little smaller than Jae Shin’s bedroom - a huge television screen along one wall, a low table with a few folders of DVDs scattered across it, a long sofa big enough for over half a dozen people - but it was a lot nicer than any other DVD room or noraebang he’d ever been in. Most of those were for high school kids, university students, people who mostly came together to drink and get stupid. This place was expensive and clean and just a tiny bit too warm, walls painted a deep purple-red, and Jae Shin stood in the middle of the room feeling stupid and out of place and Yong Ha was standing against the door looking like nothing he’d ever seen before and -

No, hold on. He had seen Yong Ha looking a little like this - just a little, not exactly - but it had been last night. Last night, when Jae Shin hadn’t been able to keep his hands off of him and Yong Ha hadn’t wanted him to, hadn’t wanted him to keep his hands to himself. “Are you okay?” Jae Shin said.

Yong Ha didn’t answer. He didn’t say anything. He just stepped forward as if he were falling, catching himself before the momentum dragged him to the ground, and reached out. Hooked two fingers into the collar of Jae Shin’s shirt. Pulled him in, caught his mouth against his own possessive and careful and just a little bit rough, just a little bit crazy, just a little bit like he was scared Jae Shin was going to disappear in a puff of smoke.

“I’m fine,” Yong Ha breathed. “I’m great. I’m fantastic. Shut up. Stop saying stupid things. Stop asking stupid questions.” And pushed him until his heels bumped up against the sofa, pushed him so he lost his balance, pushed him so that he had to sit back hard on the cushions. Straddled him, palm still flat against chest to hold him steady against the back of the sofa, and -

“We win,” he said.

“Okay,” Jae Shin breathed, because he couldn’t quite manage anything else. His throat wasn’t working. His brain wasn’t working. In the back of his head somewhere that voice was screaming at him to get out, get away, not to relinquish control; his dick was directing him to grab Yong Ha around the waist, pull him in, keep him there forever - and for once in his goddamn life the voice lost. The voice lost, and instead of escaping he reached for Yong Ha and pulled him in.

Yong Ha was warm under his hands and he still tasted like the bottle of red wine they’d shared half an hour ago, heady and bitter and just a little bit sweet. Yong Ha’s hands were on his neck, fingers in his hair, tongue in his mouth. Every time he thought he had a handle on Yong Ha he lost it again, every time he thought he knew who Yong Ha was he ended up getting proven wrong. He felt like he was going to explode, maybe. Overheat to the point of spontaneous combustion, vibrate so much that all of his atoms unformed and floated off into the universe to form stars and planets and moons and dust. Then Yong Ha adjusted and his erection rubbed up against Jae Shin’s dick, and - and Jae Shin opened his mouth and said a stupid thing even though Yong Ha had just told him not to.

“I think I might like you more than you like me,” he said, and regretted it almost before the words formed in his mouth. “I mean - I don’t… I don’t want to share you.”

Yong Ha paused. “What?”

Jae Shin swallowed. “You’re always saying you’re made to be shared, and I don’t want to. I don’t want to share you. I mean, fuck -” This wasn’t going the right way. “I mean I can, if I have to. If you want me to. But I really -”

“You’re an idiot,” Yong Ha sighed. Curved down into him and kissed him, fingers going for the buttons of Jae Shin’s shirt. “You’re a total moron.”

“The bartender at Hive,” Jae Shin continued, losing his breath. His pulse was thumping so hard that it almost hurt, and Yong Ha kept unbuttoning his shirt, kept pressing against him, kept breathing on his skin. “He said you never stayed with anyone for long. He said you were too stuck on some guy from a long -”

Yong Ha’s fingers lost purchase on the buttons. “Fuck. Never let me punch anyone again. My fingers are too stiff for this.”

“Do you need help?”

Yong Ha swatted Jae Shin’s hand away. “The day I need help to tear your clothes off is the day you should bury me in the cold hard ground. And who the hell do you think that might be, huh? The guy from a long time ago?”

“… Jean-Baptiste?”

Yong Ha stopped. Glared at him. “Are you serious? You’re so _bad_ at this.” Lost his patience and pulled Jae Shin’s shirt open in one rough movement, the last few buttons popping free of their threads and flying off somewhere into the dark of the room. “It’s you, shithead. It’s you. It’s always been you. It’s always gonna be you. You can fuck up and fuck me over and say dumb shit and get drunk and get lost and get in fights and fall asleep in the damn street -” His hands found the lower hem of Jae Shin’s undershirt and pulled it up, breath catching in his throat “- and it’s still always, always gonna be you.”

A much more important voice, a voice Jae Shin had only heard a couple of times, a voice that was so much louder and heavier and needier than any of the others woke up. Took a deep breath. Whispered, _it’s always been him. It’s always going to be him._

The room was just a tiny bit too warm but it was just right with his shirt off. Jae Shin reached up, pulled off Yong Ha’s jacket, yanked the sleeves down his arms. Ran his hands under the hem of Yong Ha’s gray t-shirt, felt the warmth of his skin, slid his hands up and up and up, pulled the shirt off, (“Be careful,” Yong Ha stuttered, hand coming up to catch his glasses as they tumbled off his face), gripped his hips tight. “I can’t stop thinking about last night,” he said, the words coming out of him without permission. “I keep -”

Yong Ha sighed and curved down into him, threading his fingers together behind Jae Shin’s neck. “We can’t keep doing this.”

“What?” Jae Shin stared at him, heart stuttering in his chest. “No, wait -”

“I can’t keep just letting you get me off. Don’t get me wrong,” he added quickly, sitting up a little, “that in and of itself is fantastic. Amazing, even. Please feel free to continue, christ. But -”

Jae Shin sat back against the couch, hands tightening on Yong Ha’s hipbones. “But what?”

“But I’ve wanted you for such a goddamn long time,” Yong Ha said. Leaned in close. Pressed his lips to the corner of Jae Shin’s mouth, along the line of his jaw, against his earlobe. “I’ve wanted you for so goddamn long and… and as much as I want you to get me off I want to return the favor even more.” He ran his teeth just very very barely over Jae Shin’s throat, kissed him, breathed against the wetness on his skin and chilled him. “Can I do that? Can I please, _please_ return the favor?”

“I don’t -” Jae Shin hesitated. He couldn’t say he didn’t want it. It wasn’t true (it wasn’t true even a little bit) and he couldn’t say it. He could still see the way Yong Ha looked with his arm cocked back like the hammer of a pistol, that look of cold fury on his face, that lightning bolt realization that the reason Yong Ha was so white-hot with anger was because Lim Byeong Chun had hurt him, had hurt Moon Jae Shin ( _too hung up on some guy from a long time ago,_ the bartender had said) - and now Yong Ha was pressing into him and kissing his throat and if he didn’t relieve some of this pressure he might spontaneously combust. “I don’t know what I want.”

“Can I try something?” Yong Ha had pulled back a little and was watching him - that look that could be mischief if his mouth were turned up at the corners, if his eyebrows were arched just slightly, if his eyes weren’t quite so dark, if his breath didn’t come quite so quick and rough and tight.

“Yeah,” Jae Shin said, because suddenly he wasn’t worried anymore. Even though the voice had lost it was still screaming at him in the back of his head, but he didn’t fucking care. “Yeah.”

“For the longest time I just had this little kid crush on you.” Yong Ha’s voice was low and quiet and just a little bit hoarse. “You know?” He leaned in again, kissed the place where Jae Shin’s neck met his shoulder, sucked at the skin. “The kind where you don’t really know what you’d do with the person even if you did end up getting anywhere with them, but you think about them a lot and think they’re really great.”

“Well, I _am_ pretty great, it’s nice that - oh, oh fuck -”

Yong Ha’s head came up again suddenly - sweat beading on his skin, eyes unfocused slightly - and he looked just a little bit terrified. “What? Are you okay?”

Jae Shin inhaled a shaking breath. His skin stung with the absence of Yong Ha’s mouth. “I’m fine. What were you doing with your teeth? That was…” He shook his head. “I’m fine. I’m way more than fine. Please - please, god, don’t stop.”

“Don’t scare me,” Yong Ha said. He put his hands on the back of the couch, one on either side of Jae Shin’s head, bent down and kissed him.

It was funny - the first time they’d kissed had been, god, had it only been a few weeks ago? but already it seemed like Yong Ha could reach right down into him and catch hold of his throat, his heart, his lungs just in the way he kissed him. The way he tilted his head, parted his lips, pushed into him hungrily like this was the last time they’d ever get the chance. Maybe it was because they’d known each other for so long and Yong Ha could just read the way Jae Shin needed to be kissed by the look on his face, maybe it was because Yong Ha had kissed enough people that he knew exactly what to do. Maybe everyone kissed the same way. Jae Shin almost didn’t care what it was, why it was that Yong Ha could curve down into him and slip his tongue into his mouth and make him lose his breath in the space of half a second.

“Don’t scare me,” Yong Ha said again, and this time he was getting up on his knees, putting one foot on the floor and lowering himself down. “If you need to stop you can tell me, but don’t just… don’t just freeze up and swear like that, I just about had a heart attack.”

“I’m fine,” Jae Shin said, and tried to say more but -

\- but instead Yong Ha dipped down and pressed a kiss against the base of his throat. “So for years I just had this innocent little crush, right?” Against the divot between his collarbones. “I figured it was just that I liked you a lot, that I thought you were really cool, that you saved my ass from a bunch of jerks.” Against the center of his chest and down and down and down as he sank to his knees in front of Jae Shin. “But then…”

Jae Shin took a deep breath and gripped the couch cushions. “But then what?”

“Then this one time in high school -” Yong Ha stuttered to a stop. He grinned, shook his head, flushed bright red. “- then this one time in high school I had a dream about sucking you off and I couldn’t look you in the eye for a week.”

“I think I remember that,” Jae Shin said after a second. “I kept trying to figure out what I did wrong.”

“God!” Yong Ha ran a hand over his face. “That was the worst. You kept going ‘did I do something? what happened? are you okay?’ and following me around like an idiot and it was that I couldn’t stop thinking about your _dick._ How do you confess to something like that?” He looked up into Jae Shin’s face and went red all over again. “I mean… I don’t know. It’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” Jae Shin said quickly, leaning forward. “I sort of wish you had. Confessed, I mean. If you’d confessed to it in high school, then… I don’t know. I was lot more messed up then. But in college, I think - even if I didn’t have words for it -”

Yong Ha curved up into him, parted his lips, kissed him - Jae Shin could hear his heart beat, could feel the thump of it in his wrist - and took a deep breath. “I don’t want to do anything you don’t want me to do,” Yong Ha mumbled against Jae Shin’s mouth. “But I’ve been thinking about this for over ten years and I’d really like to give it a shot.”

“Fuck,” Jae Shin breathed, heart pulsing blood through his body in a crashing wave. He couldn’t say he didn’t want it. It wasn’t true and he couldn’t say it. Yong Ha was on his knees in front of him with heat rising in his cheeks and nothing in the universe could make Jae Shin say he didn’t want it. “Okay, okay - I can’t promise that I’ll… just… I might have to stop, okay?”

“That’s okay.” Yong Ha took a deep breath and pulled at Jae Shin’s zipper. “Jesus, Shin - I already know you’re a virgin, for chrissakes -”

“Oh, thanks.”

“It’s not a bad thing. I mean that I know that this is new for you and it’s okay. I know that you might have to stop.” Yong Ha hooked two fingers into the elastic waistband of Jae Shin’s underwear, pulled - and swallowed. “Jesus Christ.”

Jae Shin looked down at himself. Everything seemed to be normal (for a given value of normal - what the hell was normal about somebody else wrapping their hand around his dick?) but the way Yong Ha had said ‘Jesus Christ’ made him wonder whether he didn’t really quite get what constituted normal. “What?”

“Remember when I thought your dick was pressing against my leg,” Yong Ha said dreamily, “and you said it was your arm?”

“It _was_ my arm,” Jae Shin said.

“Yeah,” Yong Ha said. He glanced skeptically up into Jae Shin’s face. “Okay. Look, not to be weird or anything, but I think I know why your mom puts up with your dad now.”

“Yong Ha, Jesus -”

“I know, I know,” Yong Ha muttered sarcastically. “Shut up, right?” But then he was wrapping one hand around the base of Jae Shin’s dick, steadying it, pushing it up a little. He leaned forward. Bent his head to one side. Very, very carefully kissed just under the head with barely parted lips before dragging his tongue up to catch the precome that had beaded at the tip.

“Oh,” Jae Shin breathed out. Any other time he might have been embarrassed by the way he sounded, by how thin and breathless and tight his voice was. Yong Ha dipped down again to the base of his cock and ran his tongue along the underside before taking the head into his mouth, getting it wet and slippery before moving back, before pulling his lips almost almost _almost_ off of the head and then coming back down again so goddamn slow that Jae Shin thought that maybe he was going to die.

Did Yong Ha know that he looked like this? Did Yong Ha know what he looked like, kneeling between his legs with his skin just barely flushed from the slightly-too-warm air and the movement and the electricity and god, god - if Yong Ha knew what he looked like on his knees like this then no goddamn wonder he acted like such a vain little shit sometimes. No goddamn wonder. He was so fucking gorgeous it was almost obnoxious. It was almost obnoxious but instead it was just amazing, just incredible, just ridiculous and terrifying and breathtaking.

Yong Ha was moving a little faster, pulling back almost far enough to let the head of Jae Shin’s cock slip out of his mouth and then sucking it back in. His grip at the base was loose now, slippery with precome and saliva, so he moved it slow and easy and careful, twisted his hand and pulled it up to meet his lips -

Jae Shin opened his mouth and said absolutely nothing. He was going to say Yong Ha’s name, he was going to curse, he was at least going to keep breathing, but Yong Ha’s tongue moved in circles around the head of his dick and his brain started shutting down in sections like the lights going out in a warehouse. (Was this what it was like? Was this what it was like to be okay?) Jae Shin couldn’t stop himself from sliding his hand into Yong Ha’s hair, fingers tangling in the strands despite himself. (Careful. Careful.) Every time Yong Ha moved it killed him, killed him and brought him back and killed him again, over and over and over.

For some ungodly reason Yong Ha wanted to be with him and it killed him, it killed him, it killed him - for a second the voice in the back of his head tried to get in the way but instead Yong Ha slid his mouth down the length of his dick, taking the entire length of it into his mouth until the head was practically in his throat, let it rest there for barely half a second before he _swallowed_ and the voice shut the fuck up for once. Shut down completely, almost like it had never been there at all. There wasn’t anything, then - no voice, no confusion, no wondering why the hell Yong Ha was here with him. Just nothing. And everything.

“Fuck,” Jae Shin sighed. Was this what it was like? Was this what it felt like not to have that voice in the back of your head?

Yong Ha’s eyes flickered up, caught his eyes, held his gaze for a second as he pulled off of him, hand still working slowly up and down the shaft, thumb dragging over the head with every stroke. His lips were swollen and pink and shining - a little like they’d been kissing but way, way more devastating - and he pressed them to the side of Jae Shin’s dick, just under the head. “Are you okay?”

“Please,” Jae Shin said, because he couldn’t say anything else, because his lungs were barely working, because he had to say something for Yong Ha to keep going and his mind had started slowly disintegrating into dust and sand fifteen minutes ago. “Please, Yong Ha, god - please don’t stop.”

Yong Ha laughed then, a quiet exhale, thick and low and amazed - “You sound like you’re praying.” - and took Jae Shin back into his mouth, sucked him down hard, closed his eyes and stroked his fist up the length at the same time as he dipped down so that his lips met his hand before pulling back again.

It was too much. It was way too much. Jae Shin felt hot under his skin - like he was boiling, like he’d gone radioactive - and the pressure had heightened so goddamn much and his lungs didn’t work and god, god, _god_ Yong Ha was doing something, he was doing something with his tongue that Jae Shin couldn’t figure out for the life of him.

Jae Shin’s hand tightened a little bit in Yong Ha’s hair. “I’m going to come,” he said, in a voice that sounded somehow incredibly, unreasonably calm and just a little bit surprised. “Yong Ha, _fuck_ -”

It was nothing like any other orgasm he’d ever had, by himself in the dark of his bedroom when the pressure got too much. He didn’t usually think about much besides relieving the ache, the unbearable weight of it, didn’t think about anything besides getting it over with so that he could just go to sleep and focus on literally anything else. But this time when he spoke Yong Ha’s eyes came up and locked onto him, his mouth moved just a little bit faster, he made a sound in the back of his throat that sounded almost like he was the one getting off -

Who knows if Jae Shin said anything then. His vision went white and his ears hummed and when he could breathe again, when he could see again, when the world wasn’t one tightly spinning firework around his head the last thing on his mind was what the hell he might have said. He fell back against the couch and took a breath, then a second, then a third. (Maybe at some point he’d stop shaking.)

Yong Ha licked his lips and slipped back up onto the couch next to him, one hand on his chest. “Hey,” he said, voice thick.

“Hi,” Jae Shin said. He pressed his palm over Yong Ha’s hand - god, was his heartbeat that obvious? It felt like it could shake the building. “Jesus Christ. You weren’t kidding.”

“What? When? About what?”

“A few weeks ago.” Jae Shin shook his head. “Remember? You’re extremely good at sucking dick.”

Yong Ha cackled. “Just imagine what I could do with a little whipped cream.”

Jae Shin groaned. “ _Don’t._ There’s no way I’ll be physically capable of doing that again for… for a billion years or something, and you’re going to make me wish I was.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Yong Ha leaned in and pressed his lips to the corner of Jae Shin’s mouth. “That was way, way more fun than that dream I had in high school. Just so you know.”

Jae Shin turned his head, slid one hand behind Yong Ha’s neck, leaned into him, kissed him. His mouth tasted like salt and adrenalin and it was almost more than Jae Shin could take not to push him down onto his back, not to push him down and hold him down and draw that sound (the one from the night before, the one Yong Ha made when he came) out of him again. It was almost more than Jae Shin could take not to push him down, so he didn’t try not to - just leaned into him more and more and more until they tipped over together. When Yong Ha hit the couch cushions he gasped and arched from the unexpected chill and fuck, fuck, fuck - did Yong Ha know that he looked like this? No fucking wonder he was such a vain little shit sometimes.

“What are you doing?” Yong Ha said, the words a sighing breath as he reached up and wrapped his hands over the back of Jae Shin’s neck.

“Unbuttoning your jeans.” Jae Shin paused. “Is that okay?”

“I suppose it depends on what happens after that,” Yong Ha replied - then seemed to consider this for a second. “Wellll, not really actually. I can’t think of anything that I wouldn’t be perfectly okay with.” He started counting off slowly on his fingers. “I suppose if you were going to tickle me, or blow a raspberry on my stomach, or steal my pants and run away into the night leaving me to find my way home pantsless and alone -”

“Shut up,” Jae Shin growled, struggling with the zipper on Yong Ha’s skinny jeans. “I’m not going to do any of those things. Do you seriously think I would steal your pants?”

“Nah. They wouldn’t fit you. You’re too muscular, you’d hulk out of them the first time you took a step.”

“Stop it.” Jae Shin straightened up a little, palm resting on the plane of Yong Ha’s lower stomach. “I’m already nervous enough, and I’m guessing you don’t want me to stop.”

“Not really,” Yong Ha said. He pushed up onto his elbows. “Sorry. I’m kind of nervous too, as stupid as that sounds. I can’t shut up when I’m nervous.”

“That explains a lot,” Jae Shin said. Slipped his fingers under the elastic of Yong Ha’s boxer briefs (god, if he hadn’t roomed with Yong Ha in university he almost would have thought that these were Special Date Boxer Briefs with their black band and bright blue-teal fabric like some kind of damn peacock, but no, no, these were just a fair representation of Gu Yong Ha’s goddamn underwear drawer) and pulled them down. “Ah. Yeah. You’re so nervous. I can tell.”

Yong Ha groaned. “Haven’t you ever heard of nervous energy? God, Shin, just -”

But then Jae Shin was pushing up, arching up over him, dipping down into him to stop his mouth. “I need to know,” he murmured against Yong Ha’s lips, “I need to know that it’s okay if I -”

“I love that you ask,” Yong Ha interrupted, pushing up, “but also please, please just… I meant it when I said that I can’t think of anything that I wouldn’t want you to do. Anything. Just try things, and I’ll tell you to stop if I’m not okay, all right? Just please -”

Jae Shin didn’t say anything and just kissed him instead, because he didn’t have a single clue what the hell he had to say. He didn’t know what he was doing - he was inexperienced and a little bit stupid and Yong Ha had just gotten him off and now he was honestly kind of scared that he was going to fuck something up - but he almost almost almost knew what he wanted. Not exactly. Almost. “You’re going to have to walk me through this,” he said quietly, running one hand through Yong Ha’s hair and pulling his head back to expose his throat, pressing his lips to the skin like he’d been thinking about doing all damn day.

“Through what?” Yong Ha sighed and stretched under him, loosening a little when Jae Shin’s grip tightened in his hair. “ _God_ \- walk you through what?”

“At this point? Everything.” Jae Shin moved down his throat, his collarbone, his sternum and the sound Yong Ha made every time they made contact was - it was addicting, it was overwhelming, it made him need to get him off just that much more. “I’m going to be pretty bad at everything for a while.”

“It’s a nice sentiment,” Yong Ha said, his voice unfocused and unsteady, “but honestly I haven’t found that to be -” Then he went silent for half a second. Curved up. Took a breath. Opened his mouth. “Are you -?”

But Jae Shin was already moving, already making up his mind, already steeling his nerves and taking a deep breath and going for broke. He parted his lips and tamped down the panic and took the head of Yong Ha’s cock into his mouth like Yong Ha had done to him, slid down slowly, getting used to it, getting the length wet enough that he could move easily -

“Jesus Christ,” Yong Ha said somewhere above him, hips jerking upward. His voice was small and hoarse and tight and he sounded like… he sounded almost like he had the night before, that same note in his voice that rang hot and desperate and needy. “Jesus fucking Christ, Shin, fuck -”

Jae Shin pulled back. “Are you okay? Do you need me to stop?”

“God damn it, Shin, _no._ Don’t fucking _stop,_ Jesus.” He fell back against the couch and took a deep, shaking breath before letting out a cough of hysterical laughter. “This is the best day of my goddamn life.” Yong Ha pushed himself up on his elbows again, face flushed pink, trying to breathe. “God, okay, look -”

“I can stop,” Jae Shin said, filling up with embarrassment and panic. “If it’s -”

“- if that ten seconds was any indication at all you’re going to be really fucking fantastic at sucking dick,” Yong Ha interrupted. “Like really obnoxiously fantastic. Did you know that your lips are the best thing in the universe? Fuck.”

“… thanks?”

“But you’re going to drive me crazy here.” Yong Ha pushed up onto one arm, breath rough. Grabbed one of Jae Shin’s hands and fitted it loosely around the base of his dick. “I can try like hell not to move too much and choke you but just in case - just in case, you should at least have a buffer.” He brushed his hair out of his eyes and shot Jae Shin a look, unfocused and anxious. “You okay? You don’t have to keep - I mean, if you’re too nervous -”

Jae Shin came up and kissed him, pushed him back, shoved him down onto the couch cushions again. “Shut up,” he said. “Shut up. Don’t say anything unless you need me to stop or do something different.”

“Can I say ‘fuck’ a lot? And your name? Because that’s gonna happen whether I want it to or not.”

“You’re terrible,” Jae Shin growled, adjusting his grip at the base of Yong Ha’s cock and bracing himself all over again. Dipped down, took Yong Ha into his mouth until his lips met the webbing of his hand, then came back up slow and slow and slow -

“Oh,” Yong Ha said distantly. “Oh. Fuck.”

He tried to go easy, tried not to do anything too ambitious, tried not to fuck it up - but even with those apparently low standards still Yong Ha gasped and arched under him, reaching up to grab his shoulder with a grip so hard it was almost painful. Yong Ha’s hips rolled up, slow and careful and very obviously restrained, and he moved his hand with them - stroking up as Yong Ha dropped down, sliding back to the base when he came up, keeping time with his breathing and the beat of his heart and the tiny choked-out sighs that Yong Ha let out every time Jae Shin dipped back down.

“If you -” Jae Shin twisted his hand smoothly on the up-stroke and Yong Ha flexed his hand against the cushions, stuttering into silence for a second before finding himself again. “If you almost pull off, but then come back, and - and go a little faster - oh fuck, fuck, Shin -”

It was ambitious. It was way too ambitious, but the room was too warm and Yong Ha’s hand was clenching on his shoulder and the way he sounded, the way he sounded when he asked for it made Jae Shin not care even a tiny bit about his nerves and the panic and the fear and the embarrassment so he pulled up and almost off before sucking in again hard and sliding back down to meet his hand -

Yong Ha arched up, arched up and let out a moan so loud and so deep in his chest it was almost a sob. (Jae Shin recognized that arch, that upward curve, and he was almost, almost disappointed to see it.) “I’m going to come,” Yong Ha said, the words bitten off and strained. “You don’t have to - you can just, if, if you don’t want to take it -”

The only response he had to that was to sink down again, was to take a deep breath, was to make an involuntary noise in the back of his throat that sounded almost (almost) like he was the one getting off -

A short and incomplete list of things that are pretty goddamn weird:

  1. Having sex with someone you’ve known (mostly platonically) for sixteen years;
  2. Giving someone a blowjob for the first time, regardless of how long you’ve known that person;
  3. Having that someone get off _into your actual mouth_ when you have never (well, mostly never) had to deal with anyone else’s come before.



But the sound Yong Ha made when he came was worth it. It was worth everything. He’d been thinking about this sound for an entire day (god, he’d barely been able to sleep last night lying in bed in the dark next to Yong Ha, his head absolutely full to bursting with that goddamn sound and the way Yong Ha fell to pieces and lost control and curved up off the mattress), had worked himself up over it, and a tiny part of him was worried that maybe it wasn’t that good. Wasn’t as good as he thought it had been, the first time hearing it.

But now Yong Ha curved up off of the couch cushions and reached for him blindly and let his head fall back and gasped and sighed and said his name in a voice so tight and desperate and _crazy_ that it sounded almost like he was crying. It wasn’t as good as he remembered it because it was way, way better.

When it was over Jae Shin pushed himself upright, wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist, leaned over Yong Ha (his body spent and limp on the cushions) and curved over him, propping his weight up on both elbows on either side of his head. “My jaw is really sore,” he said quietly, leaning down and pressing his lips to Yong Ha’s cheekbone.

“You get used to it,” Yong Ha replied distantly. He looped his arms around Jae Shin’s shoulders and pulled him down next to him on the couch, sighing a shuddering breath against his throat. “You barely needed to be walked through that at all. Good job. You’re such a fast learner. I’m so proud. This is the best date I’ve ever been on in my whole life.”

“This is…” Jae Shin trailed off. “This is the only date I’ve been on in my whole life.”

Yong Ha poked him in the chest. “What about our first date?”

“Okay, fine. Then this is still the best one since no one threw up.”

“That’s the only reason this is the best date you’ve ever been on?” Yong Ha glared at him. “Really?”

“No,” Jae Shin said, pressing his lips to the corner of Yong Ha’s mouth and wrapping both arms around his shoulders. “Did you want to actually watch a movie?”

“Only if I get to pick it.”


	20. Continuing Education

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is 30% smut, 70% fluff, and 100% Jae Shin working through some of his hangups.
> 
> UH ALSO if you haven't already go read Cold Case by prudence_dearly it's so good I'm serious it's required reading. Go read it. If you love me you'll read it. If you love happiness you'll read it. Go read it. (Do it.)

"Hey."

Jae Shin squeezed his eyes shut even harder than they were already. "Hey what."

"How much do you know about gay sex?"

"Other than what I've done with you?"

"Ha ha. Cute. Yes, other than what you've done with me."

Jae Shin groaned and rolled over onto his back, opening his eyes just enough to glare at the ceiling. "That's a really open-ended question. What are you asking, exactly? Are you asking if I know how it works? Because the answer to that is..." He trailed off. "Actually the answer to that is almost as open-ended as the question. I imagine dicks are involved in some form."

"An astute observation if ever I heard one," Yong Ha quipped, throwing an arm over Jae Shin's chest. "Dicks are, indeed, frequently part of the process."

"Frequently?"

"Sure. I would even hazard that dicks play a major role in roughly 50% of gay sex."

"That much, huh." Jae Shin glanced at Yong Ha out of the corner of his eye. Yong Ha's eyes were open, barely, but he was watching Jae Shin's chest rise and fall instead of looking up into his face. He had that one smile on his lips, the one that Jae Shin had only recently started seeing again in the last few months, maybe even weeks. It was lopsided like the one he wore when he was scheming, the lips parted like they were when he was thinking about something, but... but it was softer. Honest. Earnest, even, which was a very un-Yong Ha-like state of being. Sometimes Jae Shin felt like he could (and perhaps should) catalog all of Yong Ha's smiles, his grins, the different ways his eyebrows went up and in and arched and quirked, what it meant when he wrinkled his nose _this way_  instead of _that way_...

"Wellll," Yong Ha sighed, "give or take a few percent. Far be it from me to claim any preternatural aptitude for statistics."

"How uncharacteristically humble of you."

"Humility is just one of my myriad fine qualities." Yong Ha picked his head up and planted his chin on Jae Shin's shoulder to fix him with an up-close curious look. "But you never really answered. How much do you know about gay sex?"

Jae Shin pursed his lips and turned his face away from Yong Ha's megawatt stare, half to give himself a minute to think and half to escape what seemed like an accusation in the making. "Beyond dicks being involved?"

"In roughly 50% of cases," Yong Ha repeated. "Yes, beyond that. Like... do you know about tops and bottoms, for example?"

"This sounds suspiciously fashion related, so I'm going to go with no."

"Oh my god. This is serious." Yong Ha waved a hand in some vague gesture of cosmic wonder. "You're like a proto-virgin. Have you ever even watched porn? Do you masturbate? Do you know how babies are made?"

"I swear to god I am going to push you off this bed."

Yong Ha levered himself upright and crossed his legs under him, leaning over to peer near-sightedly into Jae Shin's face. "Yeah, okay, but I'm kind of being serious. If this -" he gestured from himself to Jae Shin and back again with an open hand "- is going to be a thing you might have to learn about stuff. Sex stuff. Gay sex stuff."

Jae Shin groaned and shoved himself up into a sitting position against the headboard. He had been half asleep three minutes ago but he could already tell that he wouldn't be getting back there any time soon. "Neither of us are gay. Ow! Ow, stop it!"

"I'll stop when you stop being difficult," Yong Ha said, still pinching his arm viciously and repeatedly. "I _know_  neither of us are gay, but I'm bisexual and you're... you're me-sexual or whatever, and like it or not both of us identify as men so what we're doing falls under the 'gay sex' umbrella."

"All right, all right," Jae Shin whined, "just stop pinching me. I get it. I get it, I said! Stop pinching me!"

"It's fun," Yong Ha said, but relented anyway. He put his elbows on his knees and propped up his chin in his palms, his mouth working thoughtfully. "I'm not really sure how to best go about your education. Do I take you to a gay club?"

"No," Jae Shin said helpfully. “I am never doing that again.”

"Maybe show you some porn?"

"Absolutely not."

"Diagrams?"

Jae Shin hid his eyes under a hand. "I'm really starting to hate this conversation."

"Okay, let's start with tops and bottoms," Yong Ha said, sitting up straight and slapping his knees happily. "It's probably best we don't go with porn on this one because it'd probably just confuse the hell out of you. So you know how usually when we make out you're sort of the one in charge?"

"Oh my god."

"That's you topping," Yong Ha continued, ignoring Jae Shin's discomfort entirely. "The opposite side of that coin is the bottom, who isn't in charge and uh..." He rolled his eyes upward thoughtfully and bit his lip. "... well, I guess we can probably go into that more later."

Jae Shin tried to glare at him but couldn't quite manage it around the blush he knew was creeping up his face. "Okay, so I'm a top."

Yong Ha leaned forward and patted his arm affectionately. "Oh, honey. No. That's where it gets complicated. Some people are definitely more... uh... exclusively one or the other, but no. You might top more often than I do, but I don't think I would ever call you a top."

"What?" Somewhere in the dark recesses of Jae Shin's sexual identity the ghost of indignation stirred. "What's that supposed to mean? Why not?"

"Well, for one thing," Yong Ha said, getting up onto his knees and pushing Jae Shin back against the headboard, "when I do _this_ -" and then he was bringing one of his legs up between Jae Shin's, pinning him down at the shoulders and curving down to catch Jae Shin's lower lip between his teeth-

Jae Shin's careful composure shattered. His body tightened up and loosened all at once. All the blood in his body rushed downward. The groan that came up out of him was nothing short of embarrassing.

"- You do _that,"_ Yong Ha finished, pulling back and grinning down at him with a look of slightly breathless victory. "And _that,_ Shin, is why I would never, ever call you a top."

"You are so _rude,"_ Jae Shin managed. At some point in the last five seconds his throat had mysteriously tightened up and he was finding it a little hard to breathe. (Was this how other people felt all the time? He had only ever been sexually attracted to one person. Did other people feel like this with multiple people? Frequently? Wouldn't it be hard to get any work done?) He reached up and gripped Yong Ha's waist hard. "Why did I save your skin all those times? This is how you repay me?"

"I'm so sorry," Yong Ha said, bringing his leg up to press his thigh against Jae Shin's erection, "I'll try to remember to never do that again."

"I was almost asleep before you woke me up," Jae Shin choked out, his hips arching up against Yong Ha's thigh.

"Do you want me to leave you alone so that you can sleep?"

"No." Jae Shin's fingers tangled in the hem of Yong Ha's t-shirt for a second before they finally found purchase and he was able to yank it up and over and off. "Though I appreciate your thoughtfulness, however belated it may be."

"Oh, well," Yong Ha said, reaching down to pull off Jae Shin's shirt in turn, "you know me. The epitome of thoughtfulness."

"A beacon of conscientious behavior," Jae Shin said, struggling out of his shirt with Yong Ha's enthusiastic assistance. "A role model for the young and old alike."

"A statue should be erected in my honor."

"I can manage erected, but the statue part may prove beyond my abilities."

"Ha ha ha," Yong Ha pronounced humorlessly, reaching down to palm Jae Shin's dick through the fabric of his boxers. "Holy shit, you weren't kidding about managing erected. When did this happen?"

"Well, when you did _this_ -" Jae Shin took hold of Yong Ha's bare shoulders, (careful of the scar like he always was), rolled over so that Yong Ha was under him, and pinned him firmly against the mattress. "- my body did _that."_

"Oh." Yong Ha wriggled under him, color rising in his cheeks. "I see what you mean."

Jae Shin opened his mouth to say - well, who knew at this point, it was probably going to be something rude - but couldn't quite manage it. The light in his bedroom was low and warm and golden and in the dim of it Yong Ha seemed to... _glow_ was the wrong word, but Jae Shin for the life of him couldn't think of a better one. He was the only thing in the world worth looking at, flat on his back on the mattress, his chest rising and falling in a jagged rhythm as his breath tripped and caught in his lungs, his face flushed, his skin pale and perfect and brilliant in the low light.

"Hey," Yong Ha was saying, eyebrows knit together in a sudden expression of concern, hand coming up to brush careful fingertips against the skin of his chest, "Shin. Are you okay? Do you need to stop?"

"Yeah," Jae Shin said, coming back to himself. "I mean... yeah, I'm - I'm okay. I don't need to stop." He put his hand over Yong Ha's, pressed it to his chest right over his heart. Shifted his weight so he wasn't leaning any of it on Yong Ha's bad shoulder. "Thanks for asking."

"Why did you freeze up?" Yong Ha propped himself up on one elbow, worry flashing over his face like a sheet moving in a sudden breath of wind. "Are you really okay?"

"I just..." Jae Shin laughed, a combination of self-consciousness and self-doubt manifesting itself as a short cough of something almost like amusement, and shook his head. "Sometimes I guess I kind of... wake up, and realize where we are, and I can't quite manage to believe it's happening to me. I don't deserve it. I don't deserve you. I've messed things up too many times."

"Well," Yong Ha said, curving up toward him, sliding his hand up and over and behind Jae Shin's head, "as long as you know you don't deserve me." And then he kissed him, slow and attentive and careful, lips parting to slip his tongue into Jae Shin's mouth.

It was funny, sometimes, the way things had turned out. Ten years ago, twelve, fifteen, he would have done just about anything to get a minute away from Yong Ha (that damn kid) and now no matter how annoying he was, how frustrating, how difficult, how petty and rude and teasing, he'd rather be here than anywhere else.

"We've done this before," Jae Shin murmured into Yong Ha's mouth.

Yong Ha pulled away and glared at him, hand still cupped over the back of his neck, lips still parted, breath rough. "What?'

"We've done this before," Jae Shin said again. He placed his palm on Yong Ha's knee and dragged it slowly up his leg, down the outside of his thigh, until he ran into the fabric of Yong Ha's boxers. "I thought you were educating me. Is this just a review session?" His fingers slipped under the hemmed jersey, and - and even now there was still the twisting in his chest, the heat in his head, the tightening in his throat. (Was he ever going to get used to this? Maybe someday this wouldn't drive him crazy.) "Not that I'd mind if it was."

Yong Ha let out a long breath as he fell back against the mattress, the exhale turning into a laugh halfway down. His hand dragged back down Jae Shin's neck, his shoulder, his throat, his chest, fingers tracing the curve between his pectoral muscles. "What can I say? I believe in a student-led curriculum."

"That's tantamount to asking a fish to fly; you know that, right? You're going to have to provide a little more guidance."

The pressure of Yong Ha's fingertips on his skin went from light to almost painful in the space of a half second, and Yong Ha was up on one elbow again - one knee up, the other stretched out where Jae Shin had straddled him - dragging fingernails down his stomach to his hip bone. The expression on his face had gone from lazy and content to something just a little more... just a little bit more demanding. More predatory. More grasping and desperate and a tiny bit crazy.

"Hey," Jae Shin gasped. "Yong Ha. You okay?" Part of him felt like bolting, jumping back like a startled animal; part of him moved him in close, set his heart rate just a little bit higher, flooded him with heat and light and _want_  in a way that he'd only just recently started to recognize for what it was.

"Yeah," Yong Ha breathed, coming up toward him - arm unfolding so his weight was on his palm instead of his elbow - pushing Jae Shin back a little. "No. I don't know. I'm okay - I'm way, way more than okay - I'm just bad at this part."

"What do you mean, you're bad at this part?"

"Never had to ask before." Yong Ha hesitated. Shook his head. Held a hand to his eyes. "I mean... kind of. But this is different."

"Just ask," Jae Shin said, voice quiet and careful and almost imperceptibly wavering.

"Can I take your boxers off?" The words tumbled out of Yong Ha's mouth all at once, each one jockeying to be first out of the gate, the syllables spilling out like marbles poured into a metal bowl.

"What?"

"You don't have to," Yong Ha stuttered, shoving himself back so he could sit upright. He scrubbed both hands over his face. "I mean - shit. It's really fine. Never mind. I don't want to -"

But Jae Shin's hand was around one of his wrists, pulling his hand away from his face. "You don't want to what?"

"I don't want to ask you to do something you're not ready for," Yong Ha said, leaning forward, wrapping his hand around the back of Jae Shin's neck again. "The reason I'm asking is because I want to make sure it's okay, not because I want you to say yes."

"So you _don't_  want to take my boxers off."

Yong Ha bapped Jae Shin irritably in the shoulder. "Of course I want to take your fucking boxers off. You're such a _jerk_. But I'm not going to if you don't want me to, and I don't want you to think that I'm - that I'm disappointed, or let down, or - or whatever. What are you doing?"

"I'm pushing you back down onto the bed," Jae Shin said matter-of-factly, his hand firm against Yong Ha's shoulder.

"Are you going to answer me?" Part of him wanted to resist, out of some misplaced sense of spite, but that part of him was stupid because Jae Shin was pushing him back down onto the bed and the look on his face was dark and focused and somehow possessive in a way that Yong Ha didn't think he'd ever seen in him before.

"I don't know if I'm ready," Jae Shin murmured, curving over him, sliding his hand all the way down Yong Ha's body until it slowed to a stop on the plane of his lower stomach, fingers curling on the skin. "But I don't know if I'm ever going to be ready, and I really want to be."

"Shin -" But his name was a groan, cut short by Jae Shin's mouth on his, insistent and pressing and sure.

"Can I take your boxers off?"

Yong Ha's arms came up of their own accord, wrapping themselves around Jae Shin's shoulders, his neck, fingers tangling in the hair on the back of his head. "Jesus Christ," Yong Ha breathed. "Please."

It was like a switch flipped, the tension in Jae Shin's body breaking and crashing and falling downward onto him, both hands smoothing down his hips, fingers catching in the elastic of his boxers and sliding them down his legs. Maybe the reason why he kissed Yong Ha so hard, so persistently was to distract himself from what his hands were doing (it was okay, Yong Ha had said it was okay) but maybe it was because he couldn't stop. Heaven help him, it was hard enough keeping his hands, his mouth off of Yong Ha when he was wearing clothes, and now with Yong Ha's skin burning hot under his hands pulling away was unthinkable -

\- and if he'd pulled away then he wouldn't have been in the right place at the right time to catch Yong Ha's groan in his mouth, to feel the shudder and the jolt of him as he drew in that gasping breath. As it was he was there and it was then and when the vibration of Yong Ha's sudden loss of control hummed into him he could feel it (in his skin in his blood in his bones) and every cell in his body vibrated right back with a desperate frequency.

Yong Ha's fingers caught in the waistband of his boxers, tugging at them, pulling at the elastic. "You didn't answer me," he breathed into Jae Shin's mouth. "Can I -"

"Yeah," Jae Shin said. If he didn't say yes now he'd never say yes. "Yeah, you can."

Yong Ha came up, pushed himself up on one elbow, dipped in to press his lips to the place just under the corner of Jae Shin's jaw. Twisted his fingers in the elastic of Jae Shin's boxers and shoved them down. Sighed into Jae Shin's throat and moved and breathed and looped one arm around Jae Shin's waist and pulled him down so that they were skin to skin. He arched his hips up and pressed into him and -

"Fuck," Jae Shin choked out, elbows loosening, "fuck, Yong Ha -"

"If you need to stop say stop," Yong Ha said, voice tight. He opened up to lock his legs around Jae Shin's hips. Slipped one hand between them, brought their cocks together - and paused like that, breath coming rough. "Do you need to stop?"

Jae Shin didn't say anything because he didn't have any words left, he'd used them all up like he always did, so he just bent down and caught Yong Ha's mouth with his own and moved his free hand to tangle with Yong Ha's around them, moving both of their fists in a slow rhythm. Yong Ha took in one short sharp breath and the sound he made filled Jae Shin up to the top with electricity and the feel of his skin, the heat of him, the way he moved - Jae Shin had never once wanted anything like this and he kept expecting to stop wanting it again, kept expecting the hum and buzz in his head to fade, but still every day when he woke up and rolled over and Yong Ha was there (he was right there) there was that electricity all over again. The hum and the buzz and the need, filling him up like honey in a bowl.

And right now - right now - right now with Yong Ha underneath him, their hands woven together, the heat blooming, with Yong Ha's words gone and his hips stuttering and his skin, perfect like it always was with all of its imperfections, he was completely filled up so high he couldn't think. The pressure was too much, Yong Ha's hands were too much, the rhythm was too right, and -

"Oh," Jae Shin said. "Oh, _fuck."_

\- and Yong Ha curved up into him and kissed him, free hand sliding over the back of his neck and pulling him down, tongue slipping into his mouth, breath hot and unsteady.

The release took Jae Shin by surprise, twisting and curling and sighing up out of him, and again Yong Ha made that sound in the back of his throat (something between a gasp and a moan) the sound that he made when Jae Shin lost himself under Yong Ha's hand, against Yong Ha's skin, inside Yong Ha's mouth. (It sounded like pride. It sounded like disbelief. It sounded a little like a prayer, the kind you say when everything goes right and you don't want to fuck it up.) Yong Ha made that sound in the back of his throat and arched up off the mattress, let his head fall back, followed Jae Shin up and up and up into nothing.

"Okay," Yong Ha said after a minute, breathless and ridiculous. "Okay. Okay. I think you'll do all right with the whole gay sex thing."

"Great," Jae Shin mumbled into the hollow between Yong Ha's throat and his shoulder. "I'm really glad."


	21. First Time for Everything

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for going with me on this smut journey. I'm sorry for subjecting you to this. If it makes you feel better I'm probably going to be buried in a much deeper circle of hell. (I'm so sorry if this is horrible. I wrote the whole thing while both covering my eyes with both hands _and_ burning to death from embarrassment.)
> 
> More plot is coming extremely soon but first we had to have a quick Relationship Development Detour.

“Hey - hey! Yong Ha, god damn it -”

“What?”

“It's Sunday. I’m the one who has to actually go to work today. Give it up.”

“I’ll be done soon.”

“You take forever! Every time!”

“I’ll be quick!”

“You are _never_ quick. At _anything.”_

“Ah, you flatterer you.”

The shower curtain pulled back. “Move over,” Jae Shin growled, stepping into the shower next to him and pulling the curtain closed.

“What the fuck,” Yong Ha yelped. “I said I was going to be done in a minute, jesus christ -”

“And you’re a liar,” Jae Shin shot back, nudging him gently up against the tiled wall so that he could step under the water. “You haven’t even opened your shampoo yet, you’re just standing in here. Holy _shit_ you keep the water cold - how can you stand this?”

“Maybe I’ve already rinsed my hair,” Yong Ha protested weakly, leaning against the wall for support. Jae Shin had cranked the heat up a little and steam was starting to billow up off of the cool porcelain, and Jae Shin was naked and beautiful and Yong Ha was _also_ naked which was a problem because all the blood in his body was starting to rush downward and that fact was about to become painfully obvious. “You don’t know. You don’t know my life. You don’t know my choices.”

“Your shampoo smells like green tea and tea tree oil. It doesn’t smell like green tea and tea tree oil in here.” Jae Shin reached up behind Yong Ha’s head and pulled the shampoo down off one of the shelves set into the corner, popped the cap open, squirted some into his hand and rubbed it over Yong Ha’s head. “It doesn’t take a detective to figure out that you’ve just been standing in here taking up space.”

“I do more than _take up space,”_ Yong Ha sputtered, trying to keep his balance as Jae Shin scrubbed the shampoo into his hair.

“Taking up space and masturbating,” Jae Shin conceded, shampooing himself. “Sorry to interrupt, by the way.”

“I wasn’t masturbating.” Yong Ha stuck his head under the showerhead and scrubbed his fingers along his scalp. Okay, okay. The green tea and tea tree oil was a fair point. “This is _your_ fault.”

Jae Shin ducked under the water for a minute, suds rinsing off, and then looked at him blearily - water in his eyes, eyelashes soaked and clinging together. “What?”

“What the hell do you expect to happen?” Yong Ha gestured almost mutely, hand going up and then down and then up again. Jae Shin glanced down at himself uncertainly. “I am _naked_ and _sleepy_ and you’re… you’re _you_ and you’re _also_ naked and now you’re in the shower with me -” He clenched both fists and shook them impotently. “- and you’re casting aspersions on my _dick_. I fucking hate you.”

Jae Shin rolled his eyes. “You don’t hate me.” He rubbed a bar of soap between his palms. “I’ll make it up to you sometime.”

“How? You already owe me literally thousands of orders of jjajangmyeon, it’s not like -”

But then Jae Shin was pushing him (gently, carefully, but above all _hard)_ up against the tile, catching his mouth with his own, pressing into him with that same heat and urgency that knocked the breath out of him every time. He wrapped both hands around Yong Ha’s waist, hands sliding between the small of his back and the tile, pulling him in while at the same time kissing him hard and pushing him back.

Between the steam and the embarrassment and trying not to look and not really being able to see much without his glasses anyway Yong Ha hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary, but when Jae Shin rocked his hips up against him their cocks (both half hard and growing harder still) slid up against each other. “Fuck.” Yong Ha sucked in a breath, trying not to suffocate under Jae Shin’s attention, trying not to drown under the hot water. “Fuck, I thought you said you had to work today.”

“Yeah,” Jae Shin groaned against his mouth, rolling his hips again and pressing them even closer together. “But I’m naked and sleepy and you’re _you."_ He dragged his left hand up Yong Ha’s side, fingertips digging into the skin, feeling the curve of each rib. With his right he slipped in between them and wrapped his hand easily around both of them, his hand still slick and sudsed up from the bar of soap, stroked up and up and up -

“Jesus christ,” Yong Ha choked out, hips kicking up and forward involuntarily. “Jesus christ, Shin -”

“What?” Jae Shin twisted his hand on the downstroke and his breath caught in his throat, hips rocking up against him again, left hand sliding behind his neck and pulling him in close. “Do you want me to stop?”

Yong Ha opened his mouth to say something, to say anything, to swear at him and call him names and tell him just how goddamn rude he was being and of _course_ he didn’t want him to stop, of _course_ he didn’t fucking want him to stop, but instead Jae Shin’s grip tightened so, so slightly and he dragged his thumb over the ridges of both of their dicks and he was so goddamn warm and the soap was so goddamn slick - so when Yong Ha opened his mouth to say something (to say anything) instead all that came out was something a lot closer to a whining moan, petulant and ridiculous and mortifying.

He reached up and threaded his fingers over the back of Jae Shin’s neck, pulled him in, kissed him hard and hungry and deep before sliding his hands up the back of Jae Shin’s head. Twisting his fingers in Jae Shin’s hair. "Of course I don't want you to stop." Pulling him back, tugging his face upward, exposing the skin under his jaw so that he could curve in and suck a bruise into the skin on his shoulder.

“Fuck.” Jae Shin’s rhythm stuttered and his cock pulsed in response to the sudden shock of almost-pain. “Fuck, I have to go to _work_ later, Yong Ha -”

“Mhm.” Yong Ha’s head was buzzing and he could barely breathe, sure, but even so he still had the presence of mind not to mark Jae Shin up anywhere that couldn’t be hidden under a button-up shirt. He worked his way down and dragged his teeth over Jae Shin’s collar bone, closing the bite slow and slow and slow until he drew that groaning sigh of submission from Jae Shin’s lungs. Jae Shin’s grip tightened even just that much more in response, the steady rhythm stuttering and pulsing, and fuck, fuck, fuck - they’d been busy the last few days, busy and missing each other. Jae Shin would get back late and Yong Ha had to get up early and in the between time they didn’t have any time to themselves and Yong Ha had been so goddamn exhausted that he hadn’t even had the energy to _masturbate_ lately. He hadn’t even had the energy to masturbate lately and Jae Shin was way too fucking good at this for somebody who’d never even been kissed a few months ago.

Did he have the decency to be embarrassed? Did he have it in him to hold off the release? Did he care? No. Maybe. Definitely not. Yong Ha’s hands clenched involuntarily on Jae Shin’s shoulders, his hips jutting upward, his head falling back against the tile -

“Yes,” Jae Shin breathed into his throat, voice thick, rhythm quickening, the hand at Yong Ha’s waist digging into the skin.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Yong Ha groaned. “Fuck - Shin, I’m -”

“I know.” Jae Shin bent forward to kiss him just in time for the fireworks to start exploding in his head.

The world shrank into a super dense pinpoint of darkness and light and nothing and everything and hot water and steam and Jae Shin, holding onto him as he tensed and gasped and tried to breathe, pressing him into the wall to keep his legs from buckling under him, carrying him through the worst of it and the best of it and the whole time kissing him for all the world like he was trying to catch the sound of Yong Ha’s orgasm in his lungs. The bathroom was still echoing the sound of it back at him when he finally settled, sagging uselessly. “Fuck,” he said weakly, voice muffled in the skin of Jae Shin’s chest.

“Well,” Jae Shin said somewhere over his head, voice rumbling under his ribs, “you’re not _wrong…”_

“Oh, shut up.” Yong Ha gripped Jae Shin’s shoulders and pulled himself upright, wobbling slightly. “Where the hell did you get that idea?”

“What idea?”

“The handjob in the shower idea, idiot.” He laughed - a short quick cough of bemusement - and leaned his forehead against Jae Shin’s shoulder. The water was starting to go a little cool but hell if he could move yet. “I mean I can’t say I _mind._ You could get more ideas from that newsletter, if you wanted.” He groaned. “Fuck. You didn’t get off, did you?”

Jae Shin looked down at himself and cleared his throat awkwardly. “No - but it’s really okay, I’m just -”

“Are you done?” Yong Ha felt like the universe was slowly tightening into itself again, his nerves beginning to hum, his heart starting to trip in his chest. “In the shower, I mean.”

“Yeah,” Jae Shin said, watching him. “Why?”

“I want -” Yong Ha’s teeth clicked closed - out of fear or panic or confusion or just plain old fashioned nerves, who knew - but he couldn’t just _not say it_ so he opened his mouth again no matter how scared he was, no matter how confused or panicked or nervous. They’d been together ( _dating,_ Jae Shin had called it in the middle of the night all these weeks ago) for more than a month and they knew each other better than they knew anybody and Yong Ha had been so goddamn nervous, he’d been so goddamn nervous, but right now the air was warm and the steam was dizzying and every muscle in his body felt like a loop of spent elastic and Jae Shin was in front of him. Jae Shin was in front of him. “- I really… I really want to have sex with you.”

Jae Shin looked down again, uncertain. “Isn’t that kind of what we’ve been doing?”

“Yes,” Yong Ha said quickly. “I mean… yeah, yeah, it is. Jesus, you’re not going to make this easy for me, are you?”

“Make _what -”_

Yong Ha reached up. Cupped Jae Shin’s jaw in his hands. Pulled him in and kissed him almost like they’d never kissed each other before, almost like they’d never kiss each other again, almost like Yong Ha had just gotten off but still wanted more. God, why the hell was he so fucking nervous? “I want you to fuck me,” he said against Jae Shin’s mouth. “We don’t - we don’t have to, but you have no idea how much I want you to fuck me.”

For just a second Jae Shin went still, for just a second Yong Ha could almost hear his thought processes come to a halt inside his head before they restarted and coughed back to life, whirring up to speed again. “Oh,” Jae Shin said. “I don’t… I don’t think I know how to do that. Or what that really means, to be honest.”

“Oh jesus.” Yong Ha put a hand over his face. “You’re so goddamn innocent. And you don’t really watch porn, do you? You might really not know. Um… okay, so look, when two men -”

“I have a general idea,” Jae Shin interrupted quickly, curving in toward him nervously, one hand smoothing around his waist to the small of his back. “You’ll just have to walk me through it.”

The breath caught in Yong Ha’s chest, and he reached down to turn off the water. “I can do that,” he said.

 

It was okay if he was upright. He remembered figuring that out on their first date (well, the joke was that it was their second - but who was counting?) when Yong Ha had pushed him back onto the couch and slipped into his lap and bent down into him - it was okay for Yong Ha to be on top of him if he was upright, if he had leverage. He could do it. The voice would stay mostly quiet and he could keep it tamped down long enough for Yong Ha to start moving, to start going, to start working whatever magic he had that could shut down Jae Shin's brain by bits and pieces and render him speechless and thoughtless and wordless.

Maybe it helped that he was already almost speechless when Yong Ha turned off the water. Grabbed a towel and dried both of them off, hurried and quick but still delicate, still careful, still kissing him. Grabbed his wrist wordlessly and pulled him out of the shower, out of the bathroom, across the floor and then against the foot of the bed. Backed him up against the edge of the mattress. Shoved him up against it. Pushed him back and back and back and back until he was leaning against the headboard with his heart hammering in his chest and his breath coming short and his head so goddamn tight and humming that he almost wasn't sure for a second if maybe he'd just overheated and passed out in the shower and now he was just having some kind of fever dream on the tile floor.

But no - no - Yong Ha was right there in front of him, on his knees on the mattress with his skin still slightly flushed and glistening from the shower and his hair still clinging together in strands and his mouth, his mouth, his mouth - if Jae Shin was having a dream then this was maybe the best goddamn dream he'd ever had.

Yong Ha leaned forward to catch his weight on one hand, wrapping the other around Jae Shin's cock, bending down to press his lips against Jae Shin's chest. "You have no clue," he said, his voice thick and tight like the voice of a man dying of thirst. "You have no clue how much I've wanted to do this."

"Okay," Jae Shin said, breath catching in his lungs. None of the blood in his body was making it to his brain and hell if he could manage anything else. "I don't - are you sure you want to do this? With me? I mean I've never done it before, I'm probably not very -"

"Shin, god _damn_ it," Yong Ha hissed, sliding up to straddle his legs, "how many goddamn times am I gonna have to tell you that I get it? I get that this is new for you. If you don't want to do it or you're not ready or, or anything -" He dipped down and pressed his lips to Jae Shin's temple. "- that's fine, we don't have to, I promise." He kissed Jae Shin's cheekbone, nudging his head to the side a little. "But never think that you're going to disappoint me." He kissed the shell of Jae Shin's ear, tongue slipping out to slide along the curve of the cartilage and drag a shuddering breath out of Jae Shin's lungs. "I know. I know. I want to do this with you. And I can wait as long as you need, but if you really don't know if I'm _sure -"_

Jae Shin bent forward, gripped his hipbones tight, kissed him. "You talk," he said, "so goddamn much."

"You love it," Yong Ha shot back, breathless all over again.

"Well -" Jae Shin pulled back and stared at him. "- I mean… yeah. I do. Obviously."

And then Yong Ha laughed and dipped down and kissed him again, quick and chaste (as chaste as a kiss can be between two people who are naked and tangled up together on a bed), before sliding half off his lap to reach for the drawer pull on the nightstand. "I don't want you to think I'm overeager," he grunted, digging through the drawer with one hand for a second before pulling out a bottle of lube and a condom, "but I took the liberty of stocking up." Yong Ha readjusted so that he was back up on Jae Shin's lap and grinned triumphantly, brandishing the bottle and the shiny gold foil square like the proverbial brass ring. "You know. Just in case."

"Just in case," Jae Shin echoed. In the back of his head he was getting scared again, worried and anxious and just a tiny bit panicked, so he leaned forward and gripped Yong Ha's thighs tight and kissed him. "Yong Ha - listen, we need to do this. If we're ever going to do this, it has to be -"

"Okay," Yong Ha stuttered, face going just a little bit more pink than it had been already. "You sure? You're all right?"

Jae Shin pulled Yong Ha's hips in against him and he lost his balance a little, staggering and catching himself against the headboard, one hand on either side of Jae Shin's head, his face (his eyes, his mouth) an inch away and perfect. "Let's just do this." Jae Shin slid a hand behind his neck and pulled him in the rest of the way and pressed into him, his hips rolling of their own accord.

"Okay," Yong Ha sighed against his lips again. "Okay, okay." He pushed back and pressed the condom against the skin of Jae Shin's chest with one hand, popping the bottle of lube open with the other. "Hold this."

"'Lubricated for her pleasure,'" Jae Shin read off the packaging. "Do you think they know…?"

Yong Ha shot him a skeptical look, squeezing a pool of lube into his right hand. "Yeah. Pretty sure they know. Stop making flippant comments during sex, it really throws me off my stride."

"You're one to talk."

Yong Ha got up on his knees, kissed Jae Shin at the corner of his mouth - and sighed, eyes closing. "Usually."

"What are you doing?"

"It's called prepping," Yong Ha said, breath shallow, "and it's something you're going to have to get used to."

When he opened his eyes again Jae Shin was watching him - eyes wide, lips parted, color under his skin - and he tried grinning at him. "What? Shin, you've seen me get off a dozen times, this is way less intimate. It's not like -"

"Can I help?" The question stuttered out of Jae Shin's mouth all at once and he went red almost as soon as it was out of him. "I mean, it's -"

"Yeah," Yong Ha said, cutting him off. "Yeah, if you want, you can -"

Jae Shin reached up to grab hold of Yong Ha's waist and rolled them both over so that Yong Ha was on his back on the bed, legs slung over Jae Shin’s thighs, knees on either side of Jae Shin’s waist - and curved down into him and kissed him, breath rough in his throat. "I want to," he said.

The funny thing about sex with Yong Ha is that he really did. He really did want to do all of the ridiculous hilarious awkward things that he never would have even considered trying a year ago. Putting his tongue inside of someone else's mouth? Putting his mouth on someone else's dick? Putting his actual real hands inside of, uh, anyway, that part was still ridiculous and hilarious and awkward and mortifying but hell if he didn't want to do it anyway. Yong Ha was under him, legs around his waist, arching up just a little bit - not the way he had five minutes ago in the shower, but god it was just similar enough to bring his breath up short - sighing breathing stretching against him, and hell if he didn't want to do it anyway.

"Okay," Yong Ha said, swallowing. "Give me your hand. The important thing to remember here is that if you think you have enough lube you probably still need more."

In the space of seven seconds Jae Shin had a palmful of lube (jesus christ but it was cold, cold and sticky and uncomfortably similar to the smear of an ex-slug under a shoe) and Yong Ha was recapping the bottle, tossing it aside onto the bed, glancing up at Jae Shin with the look in his eye that meant worry and smiling at him anyway. "You doing okay in there?"

"Something like that," Jae Shin said, leaning down and kissing the worry off of Yong Ha's face.

 

God knew how many times he'd done this. (Maybe that wasn't the best way to phrase it.) He'd done this a thousand times, a million, but just like everything else he did with Jae Shin this time felt like the only real time. Every other time had just been practice, had just been a way to pass the time, had just been something to do while Jae Shin figured things out and came back for him. Maybe it was stupid - probably it was stupid - but he couldn't help thinking it for half a second before Jae Shin bent down into him and kissed him and blew the words out of him with a breath.

"I don't know how to do this," Jae Shin said (again, again, because that's what he always said - someday maybe he wouldn't say it because he'd know exactly what to do, but Yong Ha wasn't sure whether he was looking forward to that day or not) and it was almost chiding, like Yong Ha fucking forgot that he needed a little guidance. A lot of guidance. All the guidance in the world. "So if I -"

"Shut up," Yong Ha said, wrapping his hand around Jae Shin's left wrist and tugging it downward. "Just -"

The really obnoxious thing about sex with Jae Shin was that he was simultaneously really really bad at it (uncertain and worried and prone to shifting suddenly and unexpectedly into reverse) and somehow an absolute natural. Once he figured out what the hell was happening he slipped into the rhythm like it was made for him, like he'd been doing it for years, like he knew Yong Ha from the inside out and sideways and upside down and back through history like a time machine. Yong Ha almost (almost) would have preferred for Jae Shin to just be one or the other, either a completely inexperienced embarrassment or some kind of sexual prodigy - as it was he found himself having to over-explain the most basic concepts to someone who didn't wouldn't couldn't understand until suddenly it was like he'd always known it and Yong Ha ended up stuttering into silence like an idiot.

But it was amazing what a little bit of silence got him. A little bit of silence and a little bit of nudging and usually (usually) Jae Shin picked up the cues and figured it out and ran with it. The more he explained something the less likely it was to ever actually end up happening, so despite how antithetical it was to the very core of his being Gu Yong Ha had learned to just shut the fuck up for a little bit. Shut the fuck up and let Jae Shin learn at his own inconsistent syncopated pace.

Well, okay, maybe not _total_ silence. Jae Shin pressed his lips against the curve of Yong Ha's throat at the same time as he pushed two fingers into him and Yong Ha couldn't stop (wouldn't stop) the sigh of desperate relief that sighed up and out of him. Jae Shin sighed back, breath heavy in his chest, and moved against him, inside him, figuring things out as he went.

Yong Ha took a deep breath and tried like hell to make his voice sound at least a little bit normal. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." Jae Shin kissed the line of his jaw. "Are you?"

"Almost," Yong Ha said, reaching down to palm Jae Shin's cock. "If you - oh _fuck -"_ Jae Shin had moved just enough to send an electric jolt up Yong Ha's spine. "- jesus, okay, cool, yes, you found it." He lay back and took a second to catch his breath. "That was a good reaction. Just so you know."

"Okay," Jae Shin said skeptically. "Are you sure?"

Yong Ha tightened his grip. "Yes I'm fucking _sure._ Jesus, Shin, please -" Jae Shin was getting his nerve up, moving a little more, and Yong Ha could feel it happening - could feel the buzz and click of Jae Shin's head making connections and figuring things out behind his eyes. Jae Shin let out a slow breath, kissed him along the line of his ribs, and curled his fingers just a little, just a tiny bit, just enough to drive Yong Ha absolutely fucking crazy. "Moon Jae Shin," Yong Ha choked out, "you are going to kill me."

"Here's hoping not," Jae Shin murmured into his skin. "That would really, really suck."

"You might." Yong Ha smoothed his hand down the length of Jae Shin's cock and was suddenly struck all over again by the position he'd put himself in. He could barely think, he could hardly breathe, but even so he knew that adjustments would have to be made. "Shin - oh, fuck - just, if you could, if…" Jae Shin had started moving, hand sliding, fingers separating just a little, and Yong Ha could feel that familiar cold heat start bursting under his skin. " _Fuck,_ you have stop for a second -" He reached down and grabbed Jae Shin's wrist. "- it's really good but I need to talk to you and I'm not able to think when you do that."

"Are you all right?"

God help him, he couldn't keep the laugh from coming up out of his lungs. "Am I all right? Are you serious? I'm fucking fantastic. God, look -" He ran one hand over Jae Shin's throat, over his chest. "- your dick is kinda on the big side and frankly it's been a really depressingly long time since the last time I did this so two fingers is _not_ gonna cut it."

He didn't know what he expected - maybe one of Jae Shin's slightly shellshocked looks; a confused, stuttered request for confirmation; Jae Shin blushing profusely and (god forbid) pulling back - but he didn't expect Jae Shin to respond with quiet certainty, to lean down into him and slip his tongue into his mouth, to press in one more finger, to very very very carefully work him open like he'd done it a million times and knew exactly how to play Yong Ha's body like some kind of goddamn video game. There was a moment (a second, less than a second) of sudden shining clarity as Jae Shin arched down over him, as Jae Shin's cock pulsed in his hand, as Jae Shin's breath caught in his throat, where Yong Ha suddenly got just how much Jae Shin wanted him. This whole time he'd kept expecting Jae Shin to pull back, to figure out that whatever he wanted it wasn't this, but now with Jae Shin pushing into him and his breath tight in his chest and Yong Ha's whole body singing with the press and tense of it -

Yong Ha groped out across the mattress until his hand fell on the condom, on the bottle of lube. "Okay," he said, or tried to. (God, he was just so fucking _gone.)_ "Shin -"

"Yeah," Jae Shin said into Yong Ha's skin, pulling his hand back and pushing himself back to sit on his heels. His skin was pink still - maybe from the shower, maybe from the electricity - and his pupils were so dilated his eyes looked almost black and his chest was heaving and he looked like he was only just barely keeping a handle on himself. "Yeah. Yes. Yes? Do you need me to-"

Yong Ha sat up and ripped open the condom wrapper with his teeth, too crazy and impatient to try getting the lube off his hands before struggling with the smooth foil packaging. Tested the reservoir, steadied Jae Shin's cock with a hand at the base, unrolled it down the length. "No," he said, voice tight, "I don't." He tossed the empty wrapper over his shoulder and popped the lube open again (god, he was going to have to start buying in bulk at this rate) to pour a liberal amount into his hand.

"That's…" Jae Shin took a deep breath, gripping Yong Ha's thighs tight as Yong Ha slid his hand up and down his dick. "Jesus. You opened it with your _teeth?"_

Yong Ha grinned up at him, reached up to loop an arm around his shoulders and pull Jae Shin back down and over, guiding him with the other hand on his cock. "What do you expect? My hands are too slippery. God, Shin - are you going to fuck me or not?"

"Fine," Jae Shin said - eyes dark, breath tight - and gripped his hips, dragged him in, bent down over him.

It was slow and careful and slow and slow and slow but still as Jae Shin pushed into him Yong Ha felt himself arching up involuntarily, fingertips digging hard into the skin of Jae Shin's shoulders. It hurt like it always did, but Jae Shin let out a long exhale, tight and thick and heavy. Buried his face in the hollow between Yong Ha's throat and collar bone, and the sound he made - like shock, like he was waking up, like he was having sex for the first time - the sound he made buzzed through Yong Ha's skin and into his bones and twisted into him and suddenly the pressure and the sting of it was barely even a secondary concern.

But then Jae Shin was slowing down and stopping, pressing his lips to Yong Ha's throat, taking a second to catch his breath. "Are you okay?"

For once in his goddamn life Yong Ha didn't have any damn words. All he could do was curve one hand over the back of Jae Shin's neck and kiss him, grip his waist tight with the other, lock his legs around Jae Shin's hips and pull him in tight against him. "Just - just give me a second—"

Jae Shin groaned against his skin. "You're gonna fuckin' kill me."

"God - isn't that my line?"

"Yeah," Jae Shin stuttered. "No. I don't know - Yong Ha, _fuck -"_

The air caught in Yong Ha's lungs and he reached up, looped one arm over Jae Shin's neck, curled his other hand tight around one of Jae Shin's hip bones. "Move."

 

When Jae Shin moved it was slow, deliberate. He couldn't think, he could barely breathe - everything was brand new and too hot, too close in, too much, too right. He rocked his hips back and Yong Ha sucked in a breath, arched up, dug his nails into Jae Shin's skin. Static starting creeping in behind his eyes. He'd gotten so close in the steam of the shower, skin against skin, nothing but a thin layer of soap and Yong Ha's breath hot against his skin, but that had been… not nothing, but it hadn't been this. It hadn't been _this._

Yong Ha's skin was still damp from the shower, but the water was mixed with sweat now and his skin was still flushed pink underneath, the color high in his cheeks, his eyes half closed and mouth open. When Jae Shin pushed back into him he arched up again, moved with him, let out a noise so desperate and intent that it almost sounded like he was getting off again.

"Oh, _fuck -"_ Yong Ha's voice was tight, the way it got when Jae Shin's mouth was on him but way, way more. "Fuck - please, Jae Shin, _more -"_

"Fuck," Jae Shin hissed back. His hands found Yong Ha's wrists, his palms, fingers threading together as he pushed Yong Ha's arms up over his head and pinned him down onto the mattress. The angle changed as he curved over and god, god, god -

He tried to start slow - god, he'd tried like _hell_ to start slow - but now Yong Ha was shaking and arching under him, and his skin, and his mouth, and the stretch and pull of his muscles, and the way he lost his words… all of it together tightened down into a knife edge cutting deep into his self control. He pushed Yong Ha's wrists down into the mattress, caught Yong Ha's choked out moan in his mouth, settled his knees just a little further apart for balance and gave in to how _goddamn much_ he needed to fuck Yong Ha into the bed.

He'd gotten so close in the shower and already the static was buzzing in his head at full volume. Yong Ha was hot under his hands, under his mouth, and already he could feel himself tightening like a spring. Yong Ha's hips were rolling up desperately to meet each thrust and already he could feel the cold heat of release whispering up his spine.

Yong Ha rocked up and back, spine curving just enough that the angle changed - and choked, wrists twisting mindlessly in Jae Shin's hands. "Jae Shin please, please, please _god,_ right there -"

It was too much, it was way too much, Yong Ha losing his mind like that did it to him every goddamn time. Jae Shin's hips stuttered and every muscle in his body tightened up and he pushed into Yong Ha as hard and as deep as he could before briefly losing his grip on reality.

"Fuck," Jae Shin gasped into the skin of Yong Ha's throat. The aftershocks were still rolling over him slow and inconsistent, each time taking him by surprise. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck."

"Well," came Yong Ha's voice somewhere over his head, breathless and hoarse, "you're not _wrong…"_

Jae Shin groaned. "Shut _up."_

"You weren't complaining a minute ago."

"A minute ago you were screaming my name," Jae Shin muttered, "not making fun of me." He shoved himself up onto his arms and felt his entire body protest. "Oh, fuck."

Yong Ha flinched and let out a tiny high-pitched whimper. "Fuck, Shin, pull out slow -"

Jae Shin rolled off onto his back on the mattress and took a deep breath, then another, then another. "That was -"

"That was fucking _great,"_ Yong Ha sighed, moving onto his side and tucking in under Jae Shin's arm. "You were fucking _great."_ He picked his head up and peered near-sightedly into Jae Shin's face. "Was it okay for you?"

"I don't remember." Jae Shin rubbed a hand over his eyes and pulled Yong Ha in close. "God, don't pinch me! Yes, okay? It was good. Holy fucking shit, it was good." He paused for a second, staring at the ceiling. "Can you get off from that?"

"Yes," Yong Ha said, like Jae Shin had just asked the stupidest question in the universe. "Wait, do you mean me personally? Or people in general? Because… actually that's just a general 'yes' across the board. Not usually _just_ from that, but god does it help. Why?"

"Next time we do this I want -" Jae Shin hesitated. "The next time we do this I want to get you off. Like that. Not beforehand. I mean during, with me, um…" He blushed hot. "… in you."

Yong Ha propped himself up on one elbow. "Have I ever told you how goddamn adorable you are?" He leaned in and pressed his lips to the corner of Jae Shin's mouth. "Seriously, Shin. You're so _nervous_ and it's the cutest goddamn thing in the world."

"Oh my god."

"What?"

"Do you think that -?" Jae Shin stared at the ceiling. "No. They couldn't. There's no way."

Yong Ha shoved him. "They couldn't _what?_ And who's they?"

Jae Shin grimaced and covered his face with one hand. "Do you think Yoon Shik and Seon Joon do this?"

Yong Ha went completely still for a very, very long time. "No," he said finally, in a strange voice. "I absolutely do not think that Yoon Shik and Seon Joon do this."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UGH I'M SO SORRY


	22. The Talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A smut free chapter! There's actually plot in here!!

* * *

**Wednesday Morning**

The bell over the door clonked, and Kim Yoon Hee stretched up onto to her tiptoes, reaching reaching reaching to still the vibration with the pads of her fingertips. It made the same horrible noise every morning, every single morning, and even though she knew that there was no possible way that Gu Yong Ha could really hear the noise of it back in the kitchen (with the mixers going and the timers buzzing and Yong Ha almost certainly singing something off-key and inappropriate to himself under his breath) still she didn't quite feel like announcing her presence just yet.

Who was she kidding? Like Gu Yong Ha needed to hear a bell to know that she'd arrived at work. He probably sensed her presence coming all the way from the subway station. He'd smelled her coming. He'd felt the air change and known without a shadow of a doubt that she'd walked in the door. He was Gu Yong Ha. She'd learned not to question this kind of thing.

Despite all of that she still held out hope that maybe (just maybe) he wouldn't really realize she'd arrived until he smelled the coffee. That way she had at least five minutes to figure things out.

In the end he gave her four. (A record, maybe.)

When the door into the kitchen swung open she felt it before she heard it. The air moved, the smell of chocolate cake swirled around her, the telltale oily quality of fresh ganache licked against her skin.

"You're early," Gu Yong Ha said.

She turned to face him and tried to give him her most disarming grin. "I need to talk to you about something."

He paused in the doorway, chef coat spattered with melted chocolate and butter and cream and something that could only be coffee grounds (had he tried making his own coffee before she'd showed up? no, she would have known if he'd used the machines), and gave her a long, arch look for a second before the expression cracked and disintegrated into one of his trademark curling grins. "I thought maybe," he said mildly, and let the door swing closed.

 

"Sorry," Kim Yoon Hee said, setting the demitasse cup down on the marble tabletop, the porcelain rattling against the saucer.

Gu Yong Ha shrugged loosely with his right shoulder, inclining his head and reaching for the cup. "No need to apologize. You make me a little coffee and I'll happily sit down and listen to whatever you have to say. Well," he added thoughtfully, flipping his wrist up to glare at his watch, "at least for another seven minutes. The souffle cupcakes need checking."

She pulled the chair out opposite him and sat down nervously, trying like hell not to tuck her knees demurely together for a second before she remembered herself. (Did it matter, now? Was it ever going to matter again?) The light coming in the front windows was bright and shining and just very slightly green, the kind of light you got in the hours before a rainstorm, and she couldn't help but take the foreboding personally. “Listen,” Kim Yoon Hee said. Gu Yong Ha was looking at her in that way he did, like he knew what she was going to say, like he knew what she was thinking, and for a second she was worried that maybe he did. “Listen, my brother -”

“He’s in remission,” Gu Yong Ha finished for her. He waved a hand. “I figured that out last week. Congratulations, by the way. I haven't told Jae Shin yet - didn't want to steal your thunder.”

“Oh,” Yoon Hee said. She touched her own demitasse cup with her fingertips, trying to steady herself. No matter how many times she learned just how far ahead Gu Yong Ha was he always contrived to surprise. "Right, but that's -"

"And I'm guessing you want to re-enroll in the law program, right?" He knocked back the last of the espresso like it was a shot of soju, setting the cup back down on the saucer delicately before blotting the corners of his mouth with the back of his wrist. "I'm an alum of Sungkyunkwan, you know. I still remember the schedule. Enrollment for Fall term starts next month. You might even be allowed to enroll for classes early, if you were in good academic standing before you pulled out." He gave her a look. "And there's really no 'if' here, if I'm any judge."

This wasn't going exactly the way she expected. Of course she'd already known that there was no way she would possibly be able to predict how Gu Yong Ha was going to react to anything (not strictly true - she'd thoroughly impressed Seon Joon the other by forecasting down to the _second_ just how long Yong Ha would distractedly watch Jae Shin work on his computer in the late afternoon before coming back to himself and going back to whatever he was doing) but still she'd dared to hope that he wouldn't know _all_ of her secrets. But still. Still. She had one secret left.

“Uh, also… my name -”

“It’s Kim Yoon Hee.” Yong Ha glared at her for a second. “What - are you actually surprised that I know this? Did you really think that I _forgot_ about how you worked out two of the three hanja in my name back when you were still working at Twosome Place? Seriously?” He sighed and sat back against his chair. “I really thought you were smarter than that. I’m a little hurt.”

Yoon Hee's heart couldn't quite figure out whether it was supposed to beat in doubletime or stop altogether. “But -”

Yong Ha shrugged again and made that one face that usually meant I'm Surrounded By Imbeciles. “Yeah, yeah. But we needed somebody - anybody - and I already knew you made good coffee. Anyone willing to go to such great lengths to get a shit part time job at a brand new bakery needs the job bad enough not to mess it up. Besides, no one else applied for it and I was pretty damn sure you’d end up being worth your weight in fun.” He paused for a second. “I have to admit that I _am_ curious where you came up with the name Kim Yoon Shik, though. A cousin? A random choice? For a while I thought it was your brother’s name, but I figure you can’t be _that_ stupid.”

“Ah,” Yoon Hee said. “Um.”

He stared at her for a second before letting out a quick short laugh of disbelief. “You’re joking. You’re _joking._ It is your brother’s name. You took your brother’s name and gave Shin some random asshole’s registration number - you should have at least used your brother’s number, jesus christ, just imagine if Shin had ever actually _checked it out_ \- and now, months later—”

“I know,” Yoon Hee groaned into her hands. “I _know._ In my defense I wasn’t really expecting it to work. How do I talk to the boss about this?”

Yong Ha sighed and ran a hand over his face. “I can’t say I haven’t been expecting this from the day you walked through the door, but - look, it isn’t going to be particularly easy.”

“He’s going to be angry.”

“Nah. He’ll mostly just be embarrassed. He might be angry at _me_ for knowing and not telling him, but let me worry about that part.” Yong Ha patted his mouth thoughtfully. “You should probably turn in your notice before telling him your real name, and we’ll need to find a replacement for you…”

“About that,” Yoon Hee said carefully. “My brother makes really good coffee.”

“What?”

“And he can’t join the army because of his medical history,” she added quickly, leaning forward, “plus you wouldn’t even have to make him a new nametag, I could just give him mine. And he’s a hard worker. And he really needs a job at least until I’m out of school because I have to start interning full time soon and the rent on our apartment is going up and our mom already works two -”

“Okay, okay,” Yong Ha interrupted, holding his hands up defensively. “I get it. I get it! Jesus, you pull this one over on us and then you ask us to give your brother a job?” He rolled his eyes at the look on her face. “It’s fine, don’t go all green like that. Shin is going to take a little convincing - or some smelling salts, at least - and I can’t promise anything. But we can see what happens. Okay?”

Yoon Hee settled slightly, sitting back in her chair. "Okay," she said. "Okay."

"Just…"

She glanced up. "Just what?"

Yong Ha grimaced. Rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. "Just give us a little time, could you? I know that this is your life. But it's been a month with our friends in the attic —" He hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the door leading up into the office upstairs that… well, right now Yoon Hee knew it was empty, but any minute now the police would be knocking at the back door. "— and we haven't caught the guy yet. We need you, Yoon Hee." His mouth twisted. "Jae Shin needs you. You're part of this now. I know it might be a little too much to ask, but…"

"I'll see what I can do," she said quietly, standing up and picking both saucers up off of the table. "I'm not just going to abandon you."

 

* * *

**Wednesday Afternoon**

"Oi. Yoon Shik."

Moon Jae Shin felt a twinge of guilt pass through him for half a second when he saw Yoon Shik flinch at the sound of his voice. "You're not in trouble, jesus. Come over here for a second."

Yoon Shik glanced around the bakery. "But I'm still—"

Jae Shin rolled his eyes and beckoned impatiently. "The shop's empty. Dinner rush isn't for another half hour. I need to talk to you about something."

It took a second before Yoon Shik got over his hesitation and came over to where Jae Shin was sitting at one of the small tables near the back of the bakery, laptop open in front of him and papers scattered across the width and breadth of the table top. "What do you need to talk to me about?"

"Sit down, will you? You're going to give me a stiff neck."

Yoon Shik pulled out the chair across from Jae Shin and sat down gingerly at the edge of the seat. "Did… did Gu Yong Ha talk to you?"

"Y-" Jae Shin paused. "About what?"

There was a moment of uncertainty before Yoon Shik flushed bright pink and waved a hand. "Sorry. It's not important. What do you need to talk to me about?"

Jae Shin had been so sure, three minutes ago. He'd known what he'd wanted to say, what he'd needed to say. He'd had the words for it. But now with Yoon Shik in front of him, looking anxious and uncertain and just very slightly caught off-balance, he found himself almost at a loss for words. "Yong Ha tells me," he started, then hesitated. "Gu Yong Ha tells me that you and Lee Seon Joon are, um, together. Is that true?"

He wouldn't have thought it possible for Yoon Shik to blush even more furiously but then again life was full of surprises. Yoon Shik's hands twisted in his lap and he stared at the floor for a second before opening his mouth. Closing it again. Opening it a second time. "I'll answer that," he replied slowly, voice sounding a little strangled, "if you'll answer a question in return."

Back in February Jae Shin had looked at Yoon Shik (standing in his doorstep at nearly midnight with blue lips and a pink nose and his mittened hands full of take-out containers) and realized just how much this weird little thin-boned kid reminded him of Gu Yong Ha. The way he always seemed five steps ahead, the twinkle he got in his eye sometimes, the way he always seemed to ask the exact wrong question at the exact wrong time.

"Okay," Jae Shin replied cautiously, and felt for all the world like he was across the table from a poker champion. "I guess it depends on the question, but sure - I'll accept those conditions. What do you want to know?"

"You and Gu Yong Ha," Yoon Shik said, and now his eyes flickered up to lock onto Jae Shin's face. (The kind of twinkle that Yong Ha got sometimes, a dangerous sort of shine to it.) "You two - you're together. You're dating. Right?"

Damn. Damn. Damn.

Okay, let's take a second to think about this logically. Kim Yoon Shik had been caught kissing Lee Seon Joon behind the bakery - Jae Shin had way more homosexual dirt on the kid than the kid had on him, even if Jae Shin did give in and tell the truth. And it's not like it wasn't pretty goddamn obvious, come to think of it… he and Yong Ha had been doing Whatever This Was ( _dating,_ though still that felt like far too casual a term) for weeks, almost two months now, and the only reason it could be called a secret is because they hadn't said it out loud to anybody else. Yoon Shik would have had to have been completely oblivious to everything around him not to pick up on _some_ thing by now, and if the kid was anything it was observant.

"Yeah," Jae Shin said out loud for the first time. It wasn't in the dark of his bedroom in the middle of the night. It wasn't murmured under his breath. It wasn't left unspoken in an awkwardly phrased text. Perhaps most importantly it was to somebody other than Yong Ha, which made it suddenly so goddamn real - not some little secret game he was playing with his best friend. He said it out loud and it was real. "Yeah," Jae Shin said again, and took a deep breath. "Yong Ha and I are… together. We're dating."

Yoon Shik's face changed very very slightly, or maybe it was just angle of the sun changing as it reflected off the glass of the display case. "Do you love him?"

"That's —"

"Do you love him?"

"One question, you said." Jae Shin held up a finger, feeling the blush creep up out of his bones. "One question. I answered it. Now you get to answer mine. You and Lee Seon Joon - you're together? You're dating?"

Yoon Shik's mouth twisted. "Yes," he said finally. "Kind of. It's complicated."

"Yeah," Jae Shin said, rolling his eyes. "I know. And I get that it's complicated. I'm dating Gu Yong Ha, of all people—" Somehow saying it once made saying it again so much easier. "—I understand complicated, believe me."

"Yours isn't an uptight jerk," Yoon Shik countered, propping his weight on his elbows. "Mine… is. Let's just put it that way."

"Love is weird."

Yoon Shik rubbed a hand over his face. "Tell me about it."

“And - listen,” Jae Shin said, face going very very slowly bright pink. He'd been thinking about this for nearly a week and he had to say it. "I don’t have a lot of experience at this but I’m pretty sure you don’t either—”

"Experience at what?" Yoon Shik looked at him curiously. "Dating? No, I've dated lots of—"

“—and I’m even more sure Lee Seon Joon doesn’t have any at all, so, uh.” Jae Shin stuttered to a stop. “Okay. Um, yeah.”

“Oh my god,” Yoon Shik said, eyes widening slowly as realization dawned. “No, it’s okay—”

Jae Shin leaned forward, chest constricting. "No, I need to—"

“It’s fine.” Kim Yoon Shik closed his eyes tight and pressed one hand to his chest. “You don’t have to do… whatever this is.”

“I want to make sure you two are safe.”

“Ohhh my god.” Yoon Shik stood up quickly and walked five steps before very suddenly curling in on himself, dropping into a squat in the middle of the floor and covering his head with both arms. “Oh my god. This isn’t happening. This is absolutely not happening.”

"I mean, have you ever?" Jae Shin ran a hand over the back of his neck. "Had sex? With another guy?"

Yoon Shik moaned miserably into his knees. "Please don't talk to me about this. Please, god. Please don't. This is not the kind of conversation I want to have with my boss. This is not the conversation I want to have with anyone."

"Yong Ha knows a lot more than me—"

Yoon Shik emitted a high, stressed out keening noise.

"—so… maybe I'll let you ask him, then," Jae Shin finished awkwardly. He hesitated for a second. "Are you okay?"

"Fine," Yoon Shik said to the floor. "I'm great. I'm fucking great."

"Well, as long as you use a condom." Jae Shin considered this for a second. "And lube. A lot of it. When you think you have enough you should still probably get some more."

"Please stop."

 

* * *

**Wednesday Night**

"Don't ask me," Yong Ha was saying, and Jae Shin could hear the bang of the refrigerator closing on the other end of the line. "I've stopped trying to figure out how Yong Jo managed to catch a wife, it was starting to give me migraines."

"I know," Jae Shin groaned, rubbing a hand over his forehead, "but now she's _pregnant?_ Are you sure it's his? What self-respecting woman would -"

There was an exaggerated gagging noise and Jae Shin pulled the phone away from his ear. " _Don't._ I don't even want to think about it. Do you know that once I walked in on Yong Jo in the bathroom?"

"Oh my god. No."

"Oh my god, yes."

"I guess now I know what happened that made you need glasses. I'm so sorry, babe."

Silence. "Shin. Moon Jae Shin." Yong Ha's voice sounded a little bit strangled. "Did you just call me _babe?"_

Jae Shin froze. "No."

"You did. Oh my god. Shin you just called me babe. Jesus christ are we actually at the 'babe' level in our relationship? Do I get to come up with any pet names for you? Oh my god. Oh my god, I live for this, I'm so good at nicknames. Okay, so—"

"Stop."

"No no, this is going to be great, just give me a minute. Let me think for a second. Okay, so you're kind of a crazy bastard—"

" _Please_ stop."

"And you're hung like a—"

"Yong Ha!"

"God, you're no fun at all. Fine, I'll come up with a pet name for you on my own time."

"You're the worst, you know that?"

"That's not what you said last night."

Jae Shin ran a hand over his face and looked up at the clock. "It's getting late. Didn't you say you needed to talk to me about something specific?"

There was a moment of silence on the line, like Yong Ha was trying like hell to remember what he'd even called about in the first place. "Yyyes. Yes! Yes, I did. So you know Yoon Shik?"

"… Did he talk to you?"

"What? Talk to me about what?"

"Nothing," Jae Shin said quickly. "It's not important. What about Yoon Shik?"

"This morning," Yong Ha said. "When he got in he said he had to talk to me about something. Remember his younger brother? The one with leukemia."

"Yeah. Wait, is he okay?"

"He's fine," Yong Ha said quickly. "Apparently he's in remission. Act surprised when Yoon Shik tells you, I said I wouldn't steal his thunder—"

"That's fantastic," Jae Shin interrupted. "Holy shit, are you serious? We need to give them a cake or something - fuck, remission? That's fantastic."

"… Yeah, but that also means that Yoon Shik wants to re-enroll in law school."

The bubble burst. "Oh," Jae Shin said.

"Right. I mean, it's still a ways off. The next term he can start is Fall term. We've got time. And he said he thinks he knows somebody who could take his place if we couldn't find anybody, it's not like he's leaving us in the lurch here."

"God," Jae Shin groaned, rubbing a hand over his face. "This is all the cucumber's fault, isn't it? I knew hiring him was a bad idea. I'm gonna kill him."

" _Don't._ What am I gonna do if you go to jail for murder?"

"Visit me daily and cry through the glass like a mourning widow," Jae Shin replied promptly.

"… well, that's fair."

"Why would he talk to you first, though?"

Yong Ha laughed unexpectedly.

"What?"

"Nothing. It's nothing. As for why he talked to me first… I really couldn't say, Shin. He's probably just scared of you."

"I'm not _scary—"_

"You're fucking terrifying. You're a huge grouch and you look like a perpetual thunderstorm. The poor kid probably wasn't sure how you'd react. But listen, I'm telling you this in confidence, all right? He's not ready to turn in his notice yet, he just wanted to figure out what his next steps were. You have to pretend you don't know."

"Okay, okay."

The door swung open and the horrible old brass bell clonked and Moon Jae Shin wondered for the millionth time why the hell he'd never gotten around to replacing the damn thing.

"I have to go," Jae Shin muttered into the phone. "Customer."

He very, very vaguely heard the tinny sound of Yong Ha's voice going "wait" before the call ended under his thumb and the phone slid easily into his pocket. "You're back again," he said. "Have you already eaten the Charlotte à la Framboise you bought yesterday?"

The woman closed the door behind her, leaned on it, closed her eyes, tipped her head back for a second to rest against the wood. "The weather," she said breathlessly, "is absolutely terrible."

"Monsoon season is hitting hard this year," Jae Shin said, hating the small talk even as it came out of him. "You can wait out the worst of it in here if you'd like. You're the only one here right now anyway. I could make you some tea, give you a chance to dry out…?"

She tipped her head back up and looked at him, a smile fighting to come through at the corner of her mouth, but she shook her head. Pushed off of the door. Walked up to the case, shaking out her rain coat a little as she walked. "No. I'm already late enough."

"Ah. Your husband, right?"

Her eyes flickered, just for a second. "Right." She bent over and peered into the case, running her fingers through her soaking wet hair. The strands pulled away from her neck, and if Jae Shin didn't know any better -

"What do you recommend?" she said suddenly, looking up at him. "I'm… I'm tired today. And we have guests."

No. He did know better and even so he recognized the shape of the bruise on her jawline, yellowed and purple and layered and poorly hidden under a thinning coat of makeup. The rain didn't help, humidity condensing on the skin and washing away the carefully applied concealer. He'd seen that kind of bruise before, and the bruises on her wrist that he'd never noticed before now, and the look in her eye when he mentioned her husband.

Yong Ha had had that kind of bruise. Yong Ha had had that kind of look. Jean-Baptiste had put that bruise on his skin. Jean-Baptiste had put that look in his eye.

Jae Shin's hand tightened on the edge of the case. This woman wasn't his friend. He didn't even know her name. She always paid with cash and she never stayed for long and when he tried to engage her (which was hardly ever - a shock of guilt ran through him remembering all the times he'd never recognized her silence as fear) she never rose to the occasion. But even so. Even so. She wasn't his friend, but he'd seen that kind of bruise before. He'd seen the kind of man who left that kind of bruise.

"Chocolate," Jae Shin said. "You want chocolate."

She smiled. "Usually."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next couple of chapters are the last couple of chapters, (I never thought this would happen? It's been almost a year!), and while they're mostly written they're not very solidified - so I'll potentially be taking a short hiatus of indefinite length at this point to make sure everything's tolerable before putting up the end.
> 
> It's entirely possible that it'll only be a week or so, and I won't actually miss my normal posting schedule! But I'm not positive, especially since I'll be going on vacation in the last week of the month which means if it's not done by the 25th I won't have another chance to work on it until about August.
> 
> But don't worry! The story has essentially been completed. Even if I die unexpectedly you'll still get a resolution (That Guy I Married has been charged with posting the rough draft for whatever story remains in the event of my untimely death - but of course if he goes down with me you're all screwed, sorry) it just won't be very polished.


	23. Blood and Cake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everybody! I'm back! This chapter was rough to edit!! D:
> 
> Okay, so, warnings: there's a fight in this, allusions to pretty serious and ongoing physical abuse, and a lot of Jae Shin dealing with the aftermath of his own bad stuff. I'm frankly not sure exactly what to warn for besides that but if at any point you don't feel comfortable continuing to read just skip down to the bottom and leave a comment letting me know you need a synopsis. You can also message me privately on tumblr - there's a link to it in my AO3 profile.

The door swung open and the horrible old brass bell clonked and Moon Jae Shin wondered for the millionth time why the hell he'd never gotten around to replacing the damn thing.

"I have to go," Jae Shin muttered into the phone. "Customer."

He very, very vaguely heard the tinny sound of Yong Ha's voice going _"wait"_ before the call ended under his thumb and the phone slid easily into his pocket. "You're back again," he said. "Have you already eaten the Charlotte à la Framboise you bought yesterday?"

Tomorrow. He'd do it tomorrow. He'd go to the goddamn hardware store and buy a new goddamn bell and a goddamn screwdriver and a goddamn step stool and then he'd replace that damn bell, so help him god. If he remembered to, anyway. For a second he considered pulling his phone out of his pocket and texting Yong Ha ( _remind me to go to the hardware store tomorrow)_ but he remembered himself just in time, pulled his empty hand out of his pocket and looked up and smiled.

The woman closed the door behind her, leaned on it, closed her eyes, tipped her head back for a second to rest against the wood. "The weather," she said breathlessly, "is absolutely terrible."

"Monsoon season is hitting hard this year," Jae Shin said, hating the small talk even as it came out of him. "You can wait out the worst of it in here if you'd like. You're the only one here right now anyway. I could make you some tea, give you a chance to dry out…?"

She tipped her head back up and looked at him, a smile fighting to come through at the corner of her mouth, but she shook her head. Pushed off of the door. Walked up to the case, shaking out her rain coat a little as she walked. "No. I'm already late enough."

"Ah. Your husband, right?"

Her eyes flickered, just for a second. "Right." She bent over and peered into the case, running her fingers through her soaking wet hair. The strands pulled away from her neck, and if Jae Shin didn't know any better -

"What do you recommend?" she said suddenly, looking up at him. "I'm… I'm tired today. And we have guests."

No. He did know better and even so he recognized the shape of the bruise on her jawline, yellowed and purple and layered and poorly hidden under a thinning coat of makeup. The rain didn't help, humidity condensing on the skin and washing away the carefully applied concealer. He'd seen that kind of bruise before, and the bruises on her wrist that he'd never noticed before now, and the look in her eye when he mentioned her husband.

Yong Ha had had that kind of bruise. Yong Ha had had that kind of look. Jean-Baptiste had put that bruise on his skin. Jean-Baptiste had put that look in his eye.

Jae Shin's hand tightened on the edge of the case. This woman wasn't his friend. He didn't even know her name. She always paid with cash and she never stayed for long and when he tried to engage her (which was hardly ever - a shock of guilt ran through him remembering all the times he'd never recognized her silence as fear) she never rose to the occasion. But even so. Even so. She wasn't his friend, but he'd seen that kind of bruise before. He'd seen the kind of man who left that kind of bruise.

"Chocolate," Jae Shin said. "You want chocolate."

She smiled. "Usually."

They went through the motions of shopkeeper and shopper, bantering over the cost, talking about the virtues of ganache over espresso, arguing congenially over whether raspberry or strawberry was the better chocolate accompaniment, and the whole time Jae Shin's head was stuck upstairs in the attic where three police officers sat in their chairs and didn't have a single clue what was going to happen to this woman when she got home. He was sliding the cake into its gold foil box when the thought struck him, a spark of an idea, and even if he'd wanted to he wasn't sure if he could stop himself from saying it.

"It's disgusting out there," he said mildly, reaching under the counter for a gold sticker to hold the flaps of the box closed. "We're slow. How about I drive you home?"

A strange man offering a ride home to a woman he barely knew. That was normal, right? Totally normal. Absolutely safe. No way that could ever go wrong for her, right? It was stupid, he'd known it was stupid when the words left his mouth, but he said them anyway and then waited to see what she would say.

"I wouldn't want to inconvenience you," she said.

"You wouldn't be," he said.

"You'd have to close the shop," she said.

"There's no one here anyway," he said back.

"It's really okay," she started to say, glancing up at him with something almost like hope in her eyes.

"No," Jae Shin said, stepping around the case and walking to the hook by the front door. He pulled his coat down and shouldered into it. "It's really not. I'll drive you home."

 

"Wait wait wait," one of the cops stuttered out, almost falling out of his chair in his rush to stare up at one of the screens in front of him. "Turn up the mic on camera 4."

A second cop bolted for a board covered in switched and dials and buttons. "Camera 4?"

The three police officers watched with bated breath as Moon Jae Shin and the woman in the rain coat stood at the front door for a moment. As Moon Jae Shin flipped the sign over so that it read CLOSED. As Moon Jae Shin opened the door and waved the woman through.

Watched, as Moon Jae Shin looked straight into the lens of the hidden camera, smiled, winked, and said in a voice pitched loud and ringing in the quiet of the bakery: "I'm sure everything will be fine. I feel like someone is watching over us, you know?"

Then he closed the door. Locked it behind him. Disappeared into the night.

"I think," said one of the police officers in a slow, uncertain voice, "that it might be time to call Gu Yong Ha."

 

It wasn’t until Yong Ha turned off the tap in the shower that he realized the sound he’d been hearing was his phone, buzzing and rattling in the bowl of the sink. He’d left it next to the soap dish after Jae Shin had hung up on him (rude but understandable, even he could admit that) but somehow it had crawled into the sink with the force of his ring tone. The lock screen was fogged over and between that, the steam filling the bathroom, and his glasses similarly obstructed he couldn’t for the life of him see who was calling, so he made an educated guess as to the location of the Answer button and held the phone to his ear. (It was eleven o’clock at night. Who was it going to be, if not someone he knew?)

“Hello?”

“Gu Yong Ha.” It wasn’t someone he knew. Or he didn’t recognize the voice, anyway - maybe it was someone he’d met before but hadn’t thought to take note of their voice? Unusual that someone so tertiary to him would call him at this hour, but stranger things had happened.

Yong Ha blinked the water out of his eyes and scrubbed his hair with a towel. “Speaking. Who is this?”

“Sergeant Park,” said the voice on the phone. “We’ve met, briefly. I’m currently stationed at the bakery? You asked to be called if anything odd happened.”

Oh. Fuck. One of the damn cops upstairs. He’d cornered one of them weeks ago, only a little while after they’d set up all of the cameras and set up their little surveillance station, cornered him and pressed a piece of paper with his name and phone number on it into his hand, twinkled at him, impressed upon him that if anything (anything, anything, _anything)_ weird happened while he wasn’t at the bakery he was to expect a call or heaven help the man who neglected to do so.

Yong Ha opened the door to the bathroom in a futile attempt at getting some of the steam to clear. “So? Did something odd happen?”

“Well, maybe not _odd…_ ”

“What happened? Is Jae Shin okay?”

“He’s fine, we think.”

“You _think?!_ ”

Somewhere on the other end of the line there was a hissed conversation. “He left the bakery. With a woman. One of the street units is tailing him.”

Yong Ha’s head spun. He leaned against the sink. “The woman,” he said. “Have you seen her before? Is she a regular? A little older, maybe. Comes in after nine o’clock.”

“How did you know?”

“I’m Gu Yong Ha,” he said into the phone, and hung up.

Any other time, any other day, any other night and it would take him an hour from fresh out of the shower to ready for the outside world. He’d have to dry his hair. Assemble an outfit. Assemble three other outfits just in case. Try all of them on at least twice in order to make a thoroughly educated decision. He’d have to pick out the right coat, the right scarf, figure out whether he needed to get an umbrella, pick out shoes, find his glasses.

But Jae Shin had left the bakery and somehow Yong Ha knew why. He knew it in his bones, in his blood, in his gut, and what normally took him an hour took three minutes. When he stepped into the street in front of Jae Shin’s apartment to hail a cab he’d put on the wrong shoes, he was wearing a pair of jeans that had never fit right, his hair was still wet. His heart pounded hard in his chest.

 

She actually didn't live that far from the bakery, and it only took a few minutes to drive there. They pulled up in front of the house and she opened the door and murmured something grateful and stepped out of the car, tucking her coat in tight around her.

He leaned over to grin at her through the car door, to wave, to tell her to have a good night. She looked scared and it killed him a little - he was going back to the bakery for a few hours and then home to somebody he knew (by now) was never going to try and hurt him, and this woman… she wasn’t, probably. He didn’t have any proof - just the bruise on her throat, the hand print on her wrist, the memory of Yong Ha flinching back when Jae Shin moved to touch his face. Maybe he’d try to talk to her and make sure, over the next few weeks, and then have a quiet conversation with one of the cops upstairs about maybe spending some time near this address with their eyes and ears open.

“If you need somewhere to go,” he said, “the bakery is open from noon until two in the morning. Nobody will bother you there if -”

But then he heard it, coming from one of the houses nearby and then reverberating around the street, and his voice died in his throat.

It was the sound of someone hurting, the sound of someone scared, and he knew it. He knew that sound. He didn’t remember how he knew it but he did. He’d made that sound, a long time ago. He could feel the hum of it in his diaphragm like his muscles were trying to forget how to make that sound but failing spectacularly. It was far away but not that far, quiet but not that quiet, and the look on the woman’s face told him that she knew exactly where it was coming from.

“My son,” she said. Fast, nervous, hushed. “He throws tantrums, it’s just -”

“No,” he said, or maybe he didn’t say it, maybe he just thought it. Maybe it was just part of him, huge, bigger than his skin, the word _No_ hovering around him in the air like a force field. He didn’t remember opening the driver’s side door. He didn’t remember slamming it shut behind him. His head was full of _No_ so the first thing he was really aware of was the woman trying to close the metal gate against him. She tried to close it but his arm was in the way before the latch could click and he was pushing back against her. (She was so weak. She was so weak. She was stronger than she looked but still she was so weak.)

The small garden in front, the concrete and brick steps up to the front door. He remembered them. They clicked into some lost, forgotten space in his head like tumblers inside a lock. He'd dropped his umbrella (where had it gone? did it matter? his hands had already been empty when he'd reached out to keep the gate from closing) and rain was soaking into his hair and threading down his neck and absorbing into his shirt when she caught hold of his arm as he climbed the front steps toward her house.

“Please,” she was saying, “please -”

But there was that sound again and he knew he was in the right place. (The wrong place. The wrong place. This place was wrong, it was wrong.) His hand fell on the door knob and the latch clicked and when the door fell open he was eight years old. He was eight years old on this front step and it wasn’t his hand on the door knob but the latch clicked and the door fell open and his life might as well have ended right there. (It was even the same damn front step. The same damn front step - he’d forgotten for twenty years but here and now with the concrete under the soles of his shoes it was the same damn front step.)

What had she said? Her husband wouldn't let her buy cake from anywhere else.

The air inside the house smelled like blood and cake.

“Please go away,” the woman whispered, fingers desperate and grasping on his sleeve. “Please just leave.”

He was twenty-eight years old on the same damn front step. He looked down. Put his hand over hers. Gently levered her off of him. “I couldn’t leave,” he said. “You can. I'm giving you an out. Get out of here.”

Her eyes were so wide that the whites showed all the way around her irises, her pupils shrunk down tight. He could almost smell the fear pouring off of her, sharp and sour like salt and lye. “He’ll find me. Anywhere I go. He’ll track me down.”

“Dead men can’t track,” Jae Shin said, and stepped into a house that smelled like blood and cake.

 

"Pick up the phone, Shin." Yong Ha pressed his cellphone to his ear and bounced anxiously on the balls of his feet on the curb outside Jae Shin's apartment (their apartment, their apartment, the apartment where they lived together like two happy people living happy lives neither of whom were dead or in prison) with his hand up straight in the air. "Pick up the goddamn phone."

It went to voicemail again, again, again for the fifth goddamn time and Yong Ha was about to boil over. The rain was pouring and he hated getting wet, he absolutely loathed getting wet, but he had to catch a goddamn cab and Moon Jae Shin wasn't picking up his goddamn phone.

Yong Ha stepped out into the street. Pulled the phone from his face. Slid the screen over and called Jae Shin again.

 

When he was eight years old the woman in this house had been... she'd been different. Some other woman. Older, and not just because he'd been younger. The tiny pieces of memory flashed across the back of his head like the frames of an old newsreel or confetti or the dying sparks left over half a second after the boom of a firework. When he was eight years old he'd stepped over this threshold and stood in this entryway and looked down at his tiny scuffed white sneakers next to the giant black house slippers by the step and the woman had stood over him for a long time and even then, even at only eight years old, he knew that she would have been crying if she had any tears left.

She'd stood in front of him for a long time before dropping to her knees in front of him. Helping him out of his wet shoes. Patting him not unkindly on the hand and murmuring something about only having good manners in this world.

When he was eight years old the woman in this house had been older but just as destroyed. Now, though - now he was twenty-eight and someone in this house was making the same sound that he'd made twenty years ago and to hell with good manners so he stepped over the threshold and into the entryway and up onto the step without stopping to take off his shoes.

When he was nine years old (and it had only been one year) he'd gotten up sometime past midnight for a drink of water and snuck out of his room and knelt in the upstairs hall at the top of the stairs when he'd heard his mother's voice in the living room below. His grandmother had come over for dinner and she was still there, still there even past midnight, and she and his mother were sitting across the coffee table from each other with two empty wine bottles and one still half full between them and his mother was holding onto the bowl of her wine glass with loose fingertips and crying.

He could still remember the way she sounded, like the mother he knew and yet nothing at all like his mother, her voice twisted up and broken and angry and scared. (Sometimes he felt like his memory must have been making up for how it had abandoned him for those three months when it really counted, sometimes when he lay in bed awake and could remember verbatim everything his mother said when she was drunk and angry and exhausted.)

 _"Who knows what he went through,"_ his mother had said, her voice hushed and low in a poorly-modulated whisper that carried through the house and echoed off of the high white ceilings. _"He can't stand to let Geun Soo even touch him anymore. He won't buckle his seatbelt in the car anymore. I tried to help him with his shoes last week and he melted down."_

 _"It'll get better,"_ his grandmother had said, or something like it.

 _"I can't do it,"_ his mother had replied back, her shoulders tensing up again. _"I can't do it."_

Everything in the house was dark wood. The stairs, the banister, the paneling on the wall. No lights were on. The air was too cold and too humid, monsoon season creeping in under the doors and in the cracks between the window panes. The whole house was dark and felt like hands roaming over his skin and the only thing he could hear was his brother's voice, scared and desperate in the middle of the night. Telling him to run.

He wasn't going to run. Everything in him was telling him to run (his brother's voice louder and louder and louder in his head telling him to run) but this time he wasn't going to run.

Twenty years of nothing but nightmares he could never remember after waking, twenty years with a black hole three months wide in the back of his head, twenty years of questions and questions and questions and never one single goddamn answer and now in the darkness of the midnight house, front door hanging open behind him, staircase stretching upward in front of him, Jae Shin knew exactly where he was. He’d been here before. He’d been here before - a long time ago and then again again again every single damn night since. It felt almost like coming home after a long trip, in a way; he’d climbed this staircase how many times, now? At least once a night for the last twenty years.

He was eight years old on the same wooden steps. The whole house was dark and felt like hands roaming over his skin. His brother's voice echoing in his head telling him to run, just one voice in a quiet humming chorus slowly rolling outward into his blood in a whispering crescendo.

The landing at the top of the stairs was almost sweet. A credenza with a lamp, a painting of flowers, a blue rug over the wood floor. Shelves in the corner holding a mismatched collection of books and souvenirs maybe. A bookcase filled with old worn paperbacks. The door on the left with the latch near the top of the door jamb, a heavy padlock hanging from the loop of metal like he knew there would be.

He never thought he’d get this far. He never thought he’d get this far, so he froze up like a statue at the top of the stairs, in front of the door, his hand inches from the lock. The door locked from the outside and it was always, always, always locked unless -

Jae Shin reached out and very, very carefully lifted the open lock from where it hung on its hook.

The door was unlocked, and the house smelled like… he knew this. He stared at the lock in his hand and thought hard. Last September (years ago, decades ago, centuries) Yong Ha had sat in his kitchen on the other side of the dining room table and grinned at him over the stack of magazines and cookbooks, grilling him on french baking techniques and flavor notes and mousse and macarons and everything and nothing, and he’d learned. It had been like walking through hell, but he’d learned, and here in front of the door at the top of the staircase the air smelled like cake.

It smelled like cake and raspberries and heavy cream and pear brandy. It smelled the way the whole bakery had smelled the day before. It smelled like Charlotte à la Framboise. Yong Ha’s Charlotte à la Framboise.

He never thought he'd get this far.

His brother's voice in his head went quiet. All the voices in his head went quiet. The one that told him to shut up. The one that told him not to try. The one that whispered that he was broken. (The one that whispered that he'd always been broken, that he'd been born broken.) The one that told him every single day that Yong Ha was going to leave again. (The one that reminded him every day about that shit-science article he'd read about victims of childhood trauma having a higher chance of becoming abusive as adults.) The one that told him that he should have been the one to die.

If the door was unlocked then the man was inside. If the man was inside then so was somebody else. And if the man was alone in a room with somebody else, somebody smaller, somebody scared—

His eighth birthday party, before everything had gotten turned upside down. He'd been a kid. He'd been a clueless. He'd been selfish and rude and had whined at Young Shin until he'd gotten his way. His mother had brought out the birthday cake (the second to last birthday cake he'd ever had) and lit the eight candles and pressed a kiss against the top of his head and he'd stood up on his chair to blow out the flames.

His ninth birthday party, after everything had been destroyed. He blew out the candles and Young Shin wasn't there. He opened his presents and none of them were from Young Shin. His mother had gotten him a cake and he'd acted like he liked it when he ate a whole slice by himself but he got down to the last bite and couldn't do it. He couldn't do it. He got down to the last bite and threw up everything rather than keep it in.

Moon Jae Shin stood at the top of the stairs, the open padlock in his hand, and he was eight years old again.

He could still run. He could still run, he had time, the door was still closed and the police had to be on their way by now and he could still run. (His brother's voice in the darkness, telling him to run.) He didn't have to do this. Right? He could just go home and let the police do their goddamn jobs for once, he could run and not have to look that monster in the eye, he could run and go home and take a shower and then… and then what? Not be able to look his own reflection in the eye for the rest of his life?

Somewhere behind that door was the man. Somewhere behind that door was somebody small, somebody scared, somebody who stood up on their chair to blow out the candles on their last birthday cake.

All of the voices in his head went quiet until the only person in his own skull was him, wondering (almost idly) if the message he'd tried to send up to the cops in the attic had been subtle enough that he had enough time to kill the man behind the door.

He heard the noise before it registered, so he looked up at the exact same time as the latch clicked and the door fell open.

For twenty years Jae Shin had never been able to figure out whether he'd recognize the man when he saw him again. He'd watched news broadcasts and pored over police reports and watched the crowds in the subway all over Seoul but he'd never felt that ping of recognition. Twenty years of nothing but nightmares he could never remember after waking, twenty years with a black hole three months wide in the back of his head, twenty years of questions and questions and questions and never one single goddamn answer - how would he know? Jae Shin could be staring the man in the face every single day and not know it.

But the house. He'd remembered the front step. He'd remembered the entryway. He'd remembered the stairs and the landing and the door and the padlock. He'd remembered everything, the memories falling into place in that swirling black hole in the back of his head and filling it up like sand poured down a well, and when the latch clicked and the door opened and Moon Jae Shin looked up—

He was eight years old again. He was eight years old. (He was eight years old.)

The man didn't look like anyone. He looked like no one. He looked like everyone. He looked like everything Jae Shin had ever been scared of. He was a tower of smoke, a living moving breathing three dimensional shadow on the world and Moon Jae Shin was eight years old.

The man opened his mouth. "Who are you? What are you doing in my house?"

It was the voice. Jae Shin heard that voice every single damn night. His throat tightened up and his brother screamed at him to run but he clenched his fist around the padlock (metal biting into his palm) and spoke. "You killed my brother."

 

"Why are we stopped?"

"It's all the rain," the cab driver said, gesturing out the rain-streaked windshield at something that wasn't in view. "The navigation says there's a collision ahead. Twenty minute delay in all directions." He glanced back through the window. "Not a lot I can do."

"Right," Yong Ha said, falling back against the seat. He should've taken the subway, he should've taken the _motherfucking_ subway, but since when was there completely stopped traffic at nearly midnight on a Wednesday? Even in Seoul that was ridiculous. Unheard of. Who the hell was getting into a goddamn collision? Didn't they know he had places to be? Cops to yell at? Mysteries to solve? "Right."

In the back of his head he ran through every conversation he'd ever had with Jae Shin about the woman, the one who came in late, the one who always paid in cash and never seemed to want to talk much. Jae Shin had never said much other than that first time back in December when Yong Ha had come in at ten o'clock and she was still there at the front - he'd ribbed Jae Shin then, asked if he had a crush on her, taunted him a little for it, dislocated his shoulder in the process. Yong Ha had seen her in passing a couple of times but he'd never paid attention. He'd never thought he needed to pay attention. She was just a regular, he hadn't known then what Jae Shin was looking for.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket again and glared at the lock screen. No missed calls, no texts, no nothing. He'd left three voicemails on Jae Shin's phone, sent seven texts, messaged him god knew how many times over KaKao Talk, and nothing. Nothing. Nothing. No response. Yong Ha's heart was a stone in his chest. Moon Jae Shin was somewhere out there in the city and he was stuck in a goddamn cab with a twenty minute delay in all directions and what the hell was he going to do? What the hell was he going to do if Moon Jae Shin went to jail for murder?

"I'm getting out," Yong Ha said, sticking a 10,000 won note through the window at the cab driver. "Keep the change."

"What?" The driver grabbed the note out of the air where Yong Ha had dropped it, twisting in his seat to glare into the back. "It's pouring out there, and every other cab around here is going to be just as stuck."

"I know," Yong Ha said, pulling the latch and opening the door into the monsoon. (He hated getting wet. He absolutely loathed getting wet. He hadn't grabbed an umbrella or even a coat and the rain was coming down in buckets and he absolutely fucking hated getting wet.) "I'm going to walk."

He didn't walk. He ran.

 

“I remember you,” the man said finally, in a voice that Jae Shin heard every single damn night. He unbuckled his belt and very, very slowly pulled it from his belt loops. “The one that got away. Young Jae, right?”

“That’s not my name,” Jae Shin said. He was eight years old again. He was eight years old. (He was eight years old.)

“I killed your brother, Young Jae.” The man grinned at him. Wrapped the leather belt around the knuckles of his left hand coolly, carefully, unconcerned. He was shorter than Jae Shin remembered him, because of course he was. He couldn't possibly have really been as tall as Jae Shin remembered him. In his nightmares the man was a thousand stories tall. “You know that? Noble little piece of shit, I’ll give him that.”

_(What was…?)_

Jae Shin had been in a lot of fights. He'd learned how to size people up, how to measure up just how hard they'd fall. Where to hit. How to deal the maximum amount of damage without taking too many risks. He’d been in a lot of fights with a lot of people, a lot of them bigger than him, a lot of them against groups of three or five or twelve, and he’d never been scared before. There was a place in the back of his head that worked like a calculator, like a machine, figuring out how to come out on top every single time. Sometimes he didn’t come out on top, sure, but when he was fighting it was the one time in his life he wasn’t afraid so the odd defeat was worth it.

“He cried, you know,” said the man, taking a step forward. “He cried like a bitch when I cut his throat. They all cry, in the end.”

The fear in him froze him up for half a second, but when he closed his eyes he could be eight years old again and the hands on his shoulders were his brother's - so he clenched his fist and drew his arm back.

_(What was Yong Ha going to…?)_

Hitting him was like hitting a sack of laundry, like hitting air, like hitting almost nothing at all. Hitting him was like trying to hit smoke, hot and translucent and dizzying. Jae Shin had spent the last twenty damn years terrified and fighting and this fucking monster had spent the last twenty years doing - what? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

All this fucking monster had been doing for the last twenty goddamn years was kill kids.

_(What was Yong Ha going to do?)_

But Jae Shin had grown up. He wasn't a kid anymore. He was the boy who got to go home, he was the kid who didn’t end up in a black plastic bag, he was the kid who got to grow up. He was the kid who had to turn on the lights and catch the monster under the bed.

_(What was Yong Ha going to do if he went to jail for murder?)_

In the end Jae Shin had him on his knees.

In the end Jae Shin had him begging.

In the end Jae Shin only cared about one thing.

 

"Gu Yong Ha," the cop said when he opened the door to the bakery.

"You," Yong Ha choked out. He pulled his glasses off and tried to wipe the water off the lenses at the bottom of his t-shirt but only succeeded in smearing them further as he stood on the front step of the bakery bent almost double and gasping for breath. "You. Sergeant Park? Called me?"

"Yes," Sergeant Park said. He shot a nervous look over his shoulder. "I wasn't expecting you to, uh… show up. Here."

Yong Ha shoved his glasses back on his face and shook his head. "Adjust your expectations. Where's Shin?"

"Shin?" Park blinked. "Moon Jae Shin? He's not here, he—"

"I know," Yong Ha interrupted. "I _know._ I know he's not here. I didn't ask if he was here, I asked where he _was._ Do you know?" The cop looked down at the floor and bit his lips together. "Sergeant Park," Yong Ha barked out, drawing every ounce of his mother's voice he could, pulling every single thread of You Listen To Me Right Now Young Man and stuffing all of it into his voice. "I asked you if you knew where Moon Jae Shin is."

"Yes," Park stuttered out. "He's—"

"Great," Yong Ha said - and then beamed, turning up all the charm he had. "You're going to take me to him."

 

The air at the top of the landing was still. It smelled more like blood now than it did cake, and Jae Shin could feel the gentle popping and clicking of his bones and tendons and muscles waking up again after being used so violently for so long. He'd ache in the morning, but right now he still felt numb and cold and practically half asleep and dreaming.

The door to the room at the top of the stairs hung open in front of him. He stepped forward.

The door had been unlocked, which meant the man had been inside. The man had been inside, which meant somebody else had been too - somebody small. Somebody scared. Somebody waiting for a hand up out of the dark.

“Come on,” Jae Shin said. Held out a hand. “You’re okay now.”

The boy’s eyes skittered over toward the empty doorway.

“He’s not going to hurt you anymore.”

A voice, hoarse and quiet. “Do you promise?”

Twenty years of nothing but nightmares he could never remember after waking, twenty years with a black hole three months wide in the back of his head, twenty years of questions and questions and questions and never one single goddamn answer. “No,” Jae Shin said. “I’m sorry. I can’t promise that. But I promise that I’m going to get you out of here.”

 

The door opened and he fell out onto the front step, the kid in his arms, and the flashing lights almost killed him. The police. The fucking police, pulling up in god knew how many cars, god knew how many flashing damn lights. Somewhere someone was yelling something through a megaphone, somewhere someone was opening their bedroom window at midnight and leaning out to watch the spectacle, somewhere someone was Moon Jae Shin, bloodied and disgusting and exhausted. One second he was standing on the front step with the kid in his arms and the next the kid was being taken from him, taken and wrapped in a blanket and loaded in an ambulance. The next the police were shoving past him into the house so he walked down the front steps like a sleepwalker, letting them push past him, letting them do their damn jobs for once.

At the bottom of the steps he stood in the street and slowly realized that the sound he’d been hearing was someone yelling his name, so he looked up.

Gu Yong Ha, that damn kid, scattered and ridiculous and wild-eyed and shoving his way through the crush of police and paramedics and gawking spectators. His hair was wet and his glasses were askew and sweat pooled in the divot of his collarbone. The shirt he was wearing was Jae Shin’s shirt, one of those ancient t-shirts that Yong Ha had always hated. His shoes didn’t match. (Gu Yong Ha, out in public with mismatched shoes. He had to be dreaming.) He didn’t have a jacket, he didn’t have anything, he only had himself. He only had himself and what he was was perfect. Pale and perfect and rude and _there._ He was there. (Why was he there? How did he know?) He was there.

“Don’t ever fucking do that to me again, Moon Jae Shin,” Yong Ha said, his voice thick, his face white in the darkness, his breath rough. He held out one hand gingerly to Jae Shin’s face, hovering a centimeter away as if scared to touch him. “Don’t _ever_ fucking do that to me again.”

“Okay,” Jae Shin said, “I didn’t kill him,” and collapsed into him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter may also take slightly more than a week to get figured out. Right now it's trying really hard to have like FOUR time jumps and I'm like "COME ON MAN WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS" but there's a lot that has to get crammed in there, you know? UGH.


	24. An End, Of Sorts

When Gu Yong Ha woke up he was too warm and kind of uncomfortable and twisted up strange.

He didn't need to take a second to figure out where he was because he knew exactly where he was. He knew exactly why he was too warm, and kind of uncomfortable, and twisted up strange. The room was lit up by the morning light coming in through the huge picture window, but it was facing west (at least) so the sunlight wasn't beaming straight in through the glass. He'd opened the window the night before and he was still a little bit too asleep to figure out whether he should regret it - on the one hand it let in the quiet morning sounds and on the other it let in the humidity. He could feel the dew on his skin, cool and slick, and somewhere he could hear waves crashing and birds waking up and the wind whispering through the barely open window.

Jae Shin sighed in his sleep, rolled over, settled even tighter against him.

It had been nine days since the last time Yong Ha had woken up in the middle of the night to the hushed, negative sound of Jae Shin gently descending into terror as he slept. It had been nine days since the last time Jae Shin's nightmares had gotten bad enough to drag Yong Ha up out of sleep. It had been nine days since the last time Jae Shin had sighed and tensed up and held his breath and gone cold.

And now, in the early morning as the birds were just starting to chatter and the wind was still sighing and the ocean was breathing smooth and easy against the shore, Jae Shin sighed in his sleep and rolled over and pressed his face into the hollow between Yong Ha's throat and his collar bone and mumbled something that sounded just a little bit like a plea for five more minutes. He wasn't having a nightmare. He might not have been dreaming at all. He was half asleep and comfortable and too warm ( _god_ , he was like a _furnace)_ and looped around Yong Ha like half of a knot pulled tight and he was fine. He was just fine.

If someone had told him three weeks ago that Jae Shin would ever sleep through the night again (sleep through the night without tightening up, without gasping for breath, without fighting against some invisible enemy who always always won) Yong Ha would have laughed in their face and then perhaps burst into tears despite himself because there wouldn't have been any goddamn way it could be true. It had been getting better over the days and weeks and months as Jae Shin gradually settled into the routine of Yong Ha in his bed, Yong Ha against his skin, Yong Ha calming him down and keeping him grounded and being there for him in the middle of the night - but then The Event had happened and it had gone right back to the worst it had ever been.

It had felt like a year (it had felt like a lifetime) but for a full week after everything had happened Jae Shin got barely more than a few hours of sleep every night and by the time he was settled enough to pass out - because once he managed to finally slip into unconsciousness it was passing out, not sleeping - the sun was usually up and Yong Ha was dead on his feet and it was like nothing had changed. It was like nothing had ever gotten better. Every night was worse than the worst night Yong Ha had ever seen, and every night it started with a sigh in the dark.

But now Jae Shin sighed in his sleep, rolled over, settled even tighter against him, and - and he was fine. He was just fine. He was half asleep and comfortable and way too warm and looped around Yong Ha like half of a knot pulled tight and he was fine. In the two weeks they'd been out of Seoul he'd been creeping back toward something almost like fine, something not quite fine, not completely fine but something a lot closer than it had been. It had been slow. Progress had come in fits and starts - one night he'd only wake Yong Ha up once and the next would be so bad they may as well have not ever slept at all - but there was progress. It was slow and inconsistent but there was progress.

Yong Ha looped his arms around Jae Shin's shoulders and buried his face in Jae Shin's hair and closed his eyes and took a deep breath and tried not to get his hopes up.

 

* * *

**Twenty-Four Days Ago**

 

Yong Ha opened the door of the police car before the cop driving had shifted it into park, stumbling out into the mist and the dark without thinking about it first. There were so many people there already, so many police cars, two ambulances, so many standers-by mulling around in their pajamas murmuring to each other with wide eyes and curious faces and Yong Ha didn't have any goddamn time for this, Jae Shin was here somewhere and all these goddamn people were in his _way—_

The door of the house opened and the person who stepped out was Moon Jae Shin.

He had something, someone in his arms and he looked so bloodless and bloodied and terrified in the bright lights of the police floodlamps, squinting and gasping in the shine of it, and the sight of him made Yong Ha's ribs constrict like they never had ever before - scared the hell out of him, filled him all the way up to the top of his skull with molten steel, opened him out and scraped him out and filled him up with smoke and stones and fear and fury before sewing him back up again to be there to see Moon Jae Shin looking bloodless and bloodied and terrified.

Yong Ha screamed his name a dozen times before Jae Shin finally saw him - eyes wide, face blank. There was a bruise starting to form around his left eye and blood at the corner of his mouth and he looked horrible, he looked absolutely horrible, he looked worse than he ever had even when he'd eaten cake or when Yong Ha had gotten on top of him like an idiot or when his dad had yelled at him when they were kids.

“Don’t ever fucking do that to me again, Moon Jae Shin,” Yong Ha said, breathless and furious and scared out of his mind. He reached out but caught himself, flinching back before his fingertips touched the blood on Jae Shin's face. He looked like he was made out of glass and smoke and something so delicate and breakable that Yong Ha was briefly worried that he was just hallucinating, that Jae Shin wasn't there at all, that Yong Ha was just seeing things in the dark. “Don’t ever fucking do that to me again.”

“Okay,” Jae Shin said, “I didn’t kill him,” and collapsed into him.

Jae Shin collapsed into him and Yong Ha staggered under his weight, caught himself, caught Jae Shin, wrapped his arms tight around Jae Shin’s ribs and let both of them sink down together onto the ground. He was heavy (too heavy not to be real) and there was a bruise starting to form around his left eye and blood at the corner of his mouth and his knuckles were torn up and his skin was - it was practically green, he looked so sick.

“Is it over?” Yong Ha said, watching two police officers drag someone ( _a monster,_ he said to himself) out of the front door of the house in handcuffs, watched a third police officer follow out after them and vomit into one of the shrubs next to the walkway. He watched the way the kid in the ambulance screamed until the male paramedics let a woman take over. He saw the bruises on the kid's wrists, black and purple and yellow and green, and thought about how Jae Shin had panicked the time Yong Ha had gotten on top of him. He held one hand over the back of Jae Shin’s head, kept his face buried in his shoulder, kept him from seeing any more of it. “Was it him?”

“Yeah,” Jae Shin whispered into the fabric of his shirt. “It was him. But it’s never going to be over.”

“I know.” Yong Ha closed his eyes. Pressed his lips gently to Jae Shin’s temple. (He was real. He was alive. He was okay.) “I know. I’m sorry. God, Shin - I'm so sorry. You did it.”

“I didn’t kill him.”

“I know.” Yong Ha pulled Jae Shin in even tighter, feeling his bones creak, feeling his lungs heave as he breathed. "You got him. You stopped him. You did it."

Jae Shin seemed to deflate in his arms, crumpling in on himself like a flan collapsing slowly in the oven. "Yong Ha, god - it's never gonna be over, Yong Ha. I thought that it was gonna be over but it's never gonna fuckin' be over. It's never gonna be over."

"I know," Yong Ha said again, again, again. He'd known for a while that this was never going to be over, that this was going to be part and parcel of staying by Jae Shin's side, that they would share their whole lives with the ghost of Jae Shin's brother and those three months of his childhood that his head had lost and his body would never ever ever be able to forget. He'd come to terms with it a million times and he knew he'd struggle with it again, maybe even every goddamn day for the rest of his life, but the Gu Yong Ha that knelt in the street in the dark with Moon Jae Shin in his arms knew with every single atom of his being that it was worth it. "Let's get you home, okay?"

"Okay," Jae Shin said, and pressed his face into Yong Ha's shoulder.

 

Yong Ha had to fight with the head detective on the scene for what felt like a year to convince him that of _course_ Moon Jae Shin would come to the station tomorrow, of _course_ he'd make a goddamn statement, of _course_ he wasn't about to fucking flee the goddamn scene of the crime are you fucking kidding, just let him go home and take a shower and try to sleep some for fuck's sake. He didn't end up hitting anyone but it was a close thing, and he knew he looked ridiculous standing in the street in the middle of the night with his oversized shirt and mismatched shoes but he didn't fucking care, he didn't fucking care, he was going to take Moon Jae Shin the hell home if it was the last thing he did.

When he got into Jae Shin's car Jae Shin looked at him like he wasn't quite sure who he was. "Was that you yelling?"

"No," Yong Ha lied, pulling the seatbelt down over himself and fumbling with the key in the ignition. "They wanted you to go to the station right now. I explained to them very very calmly that you would be coming in tomorrow after you'd gotten a shower and something to eat and some sleep."

"Oh." Jae Shin looked down at his hands, at the blood starting to scab over on his knuckles. "And it worked?"

"I'm here, aren't I?" The engine coughed to life and the windshield wipers skittered across the glass. "Yeah, it worked. We're going home."

Jae Shin didn't make a sound the entire drive home, just sat in the passenger seat looking at his hands. He didn't notice when Yong Ha pulled up outside his apartment, didn't notice when Yong Ha turned off the car. Yong Ha had to come around and open the passenger side door and unbuckle him and talk him through the motions of getting out of the car, walking through the night, waiting at the front door of his apartment for Yong Ha to unlock the door and get both of them inside.

He kicked his shoes off wordlessly and allowed himself to be shepherded through the apartment to the bedroom, across the carpet, to the bed.

"Hey," Yong Ha said quietly. "Hey, Shin, come on. You should really take a shower, you're all…" He swallowed. "You worked really hard today, and went out in the rain and everything. You're going to catch a cold or something."

"Yeah," Jae Shin said. He sat down on the edge of the mattress, head in his hands, and stared at the floor.

Yong Ha gently lowered himself to his knees in front of Jae Shin. Laid his hands very, very carefully on Jae Shin's legs. "Hey," he said. When he was a kid and he came home from school all beat up and bloody his mother used to speak to him slow and quiet and careful, and this was… this was different, this was different, but Jae Shin looked so young and so dazed. He looked like a kid. He looked a hundred years old. "Hey. Shin. You did it. You did it. You don't have to fight anymore. It's okay."

For a minute the room was quiet around them. A car drove by outside, headlights beaming over the ceiling, but it didn't feel real - didn't feel like there was really a world outside this space, outside this bedroom, outside this place where Yong Ha was waiting to hear back from somewhere deep down inside the well that Moon Jae Shin had become.

"Yeah," Jae Shin said again, and took a deep breath. Tipped his face downward. "Yeah. No. It's not okay. I'm sorry, I'm not okay."

Yong Ha reached out and framed Jae Shin's jaw in his hands, pulling his face back up as gently as he could. "Shin," he said, feeling his lungs constrict again, feeling his heart twist again, feeling the fury rise in the back of his throat fresh and hot all over again. "I mean it's okay that you're not okay. I know you're not okay. I know you're not going to be okay for a while. But I want you to know that it's all right. I knew that this was going to be hard, and I know it's going to be hard, and I know you're not okay, and please please please don't ever think you have to apologize for it. Please just know that I'm here."

"I didn't kill him," Jae Shin said again.

"I'm proud of you." Yong Ha kissed him carefully, just over his right eyebrow, avoiding the bruise around his left eye. "What was I gonna do if you went to jail for murder?"

"Visit me daily and cry through the glass like a mourning widow," Jae Shin sighed back, grinning in a way that didn't quite reach his eyes.

Yong Ha stared at him for a second before laughing, a short quick cough of disbelief and relief. "Well, right. But besides that."

"It doesn't matter." Jae Shin pushed himself upright. Reached out. Threaded his fingers through Yong Ha's hair and pulled him in. "I didn't kill him." Kissed him so, so carefully.

"Please take a shower," Yong Ha murmured.

"Please come with me," Jae Shin said back.

Yong Ha stared at him, and thought about the boy in the ambulance. "Are you sure?"

"No." Jae Shin stood up, pulling Yong Ha to his feet. "But please come with me anyway."

 

Jae Shin was okay when Yong Ha took his shirt off. He was okay when the water came on. He was okay - pale and green but still holding onto okay - when Yong Ha stepped into the tub, he was almost okay when Yong Ha reached out for him, he was almost okay when Yong Ha stood under the water.

He didn't start to panic until Yong Ha tried to steer him under the showerhead with one hand on his elbow. He didn't start hyperventilating until Yong Ha put one hand on his chest. He didn't black out until Yong Ha said _it's okay._

 

* * *

**Jeju**

Jae Shin sighed again, and Yong Ha could feel his eyelashes move against the skin of his throat as he opened his eyes. "What time is it?"

Yong Ha picked his head up and squinted at the digital clock on Jae Shin’s side of the bed, trying convince the blur to solidify into numbers and failing spectacularly. “From here it appears to be red-smear-thirty. I don't know, couldn't be much later than six."

"Birds are up. It's so _loud._ "

"We're not in Kansas anymore."

"Never been to Kansas."

"Seoul, then. There are more birds here than in the city."

Jae Shin wriggled in against his skin and pressed his lips to the line of Yong Ha's throat. "You smell terrible."

"I do _not._ What do you think you're doing? Shin, seriously, it's six o'clock in the morning and we are on _vacation—_ "

"You smell terrible," Jae Shin said again, his voice going low and throaty as he pressed his lips again and again and again down the side of Yong Ha's throat down onto the skin of his chest. "You smell like sex and sweat and saltwater. What the hell have you been doing?"

"I'm on _vacation,_ " Yong Ha repeated, breath hitching in his chest as Jae Shin dragged teeth lightly over his skin. "I've been busy going to the beach and falling asleep next to the pool and getting my brains fucked out."

"That's an absolutely disgusting way of putting it."

"Well maybe if I had any brains left I'd be able to think of something better, but unfortunately they've all been fucked out. And whose fault is that, exactly?"

Jae Shin dragged a hand down the plane of Yong Ha's lower stomach, down the sharp peak of his pelvis, slipped his fingers under the elastic of Yong Ha's boxer briefs and then down into the curve where his leg met his hip. "If I recall correctly it was something of a joint effort."

"You're - _fuck_ \- you're incorrigible."

"I can stop," Jae Shin stuttered, pulling his hand back.

There it was.

Part of him had been waiting for it, but most of him was hoping it wouldn't show up. They played a game together that Jae Shin had been getting better at for months now, from that first time in the DVD room when he wouldn't move until Yong Ha had told him to just go, right up until The Event when all of the progress had been lost. It was worse than lost, it was all burned to the ground and the earth beneath it salted so that it was hell getting Jae Shin back to where he'd been before, to where he could trust himself.

Yong Ha had been so careful with him after, after Jae Shin's legs had collapsed under him in the midnight street, after he'd moved through the apartment like a ghost, after he'd blacked out in the shower, and he was getting himself back day by day. At first Yong Ha didn't get it, didn't get what was happening, but then one night they'd been lying in bed next to each other and Jae Shin had run a hand over his waist and pulled him close and Yong Ha had said something that sounded dissenting ( _I see how it is,_ maybe) and Jae Shin had jerked his hand back like he'd touched a flame.

"You're not hurting me," Yong Ha said, curling his hand around Jae Shin's wrist and tugging it back. "Remember? I'll say 'stop' if I want you to stop. Until then you're okay."

Jae Shin resisted, just a little. "Sometimes you don't act okay."

"I know. I'm sorry. I'm fine. You're not hurting me," Yong Ha repeated, propping himself up on one elbow to slide a hand over the back of Jae Shin's neck. "It's okay. Please, Shin, just—"

"I need you to tell me," Jae Shin said, bending down into him again. (His hand was shaking on Yong Ha's skin, his breath was unsteady, Yong Ha could still see that look of fear in his face.) "I need you to tell me if you need me to stop."

"How's this—" Yong Ha pulled him down. "Don't stop."

 

* * *

**Twenty-Three Days Ago**

 

"Twenty years ago he lived in that house with his mother," Detective Jung was saying. "Not long after you were found he was arrested on unrelated charges and spent ten years in prison. No one knew it was the same guy."

"No bodies," Jae Shin said quietly. "He always got rid of the bodies."

"His mother died when he was in detention." Jung looked at the floor. "When he got out he started working. Seemed like he was turning his life around. Found a girl. Got married."

"Have you found her?"

"The girl?" Jung's eyes flickered. "No. We're still looking. I don't think she wants to be found. The charges—"

"—would be stupid," Jae Shin interrupted.

"She assisted him, she—"

"She was just as much a prisoner as I ever was," Jae Shin said, shrugging with a shoulder. The bruise on her throat. The hand print on her wrist. The look in her eye. She'd been trapped. She could leave, she could work, she could go on errands, but she'd been trapped. "You may as well charge me for aiding and abetting since I never turned him in either."

"You were a victim."

"Right." Jae Shin looked up and glared into Jung's face. "That's exactly it. Don't press charges."

Jung sighed and sat back in his chair. "It's not really up to me."

"And I'm not really interested in excuses," Jae Shin said, standing up. "Thank you for your hard work. I'm going home."

When he opened the door Yong Ha was leaning against the wall on the other side of the corridor, gnawing on his lower lip and scrolling through something on his phone. He looked up when Jae Shin stepped out of Jung's office, flinched at the look on his face, slipped the phone into his pocket. "That bad?" he murmured under his breath after the door clicked shut.

Jae Shin shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "I don't know." His eyes flickered to Yong Ha's hand in his pocket, still holding his cell phone. "You texted the kids, right?"

Yong Ha pushed off the wall and looped a hand around Jae Shin's elbow. "I got it. Don't worry about it. What do you want to do now?"

"Besides sleep for a million years?"

"Pick something you're physically capable of."

"So not sleep, then," Jae Shin said, shoving through the front door of the police station.

"Ha ha ha," Yong Ha shot back humorlessly. "Do you want to get something to eat? Barbecue? Ramen?"

"I still owe you jjajangmyeon." Jae Shin dug in his trouser pocket and pulled out his keys, glaring at them for a second before sighing and tossing them to Yong Ha. "We could do that."

Yong Ha scrambled for the keys, almost dropping them at least three separate times before getting a handle on them. "Okay, you know what I'm completely sick of? Jjajangmyeon. I've had so much jjajngmyeon over the last year. I don't care that you owe me. I need something other than goddamn jjajangmyeon." He pulled open the driver's side door. "I need a change."

Jae Shin opened the passenger side door and stared at Yong Ha through the car. "Let's go to Jeju," he said.

"What?" Yong Ha glared at him, sliding into the car and reaching for the seatbelt. "Jeju? How is that—"

"When you left," Jae Shin said, then stuttered to a stop. He closed the door. Buckled his seatbelt. Took a deep breath. "When you left the first time I spent a really long time reading all the emails we'd sent back and forth while I was in the army." He could feel Yong Ha's eyes on him, but he couldn't bring himself to look up. "We were going to go to Jeju, remember? When I got out of the army, we were going to go to Jeju."

Yong Ha stilled, hand on the key but not turning it in the ignition. "Yeah," he said after a second. "Sorry things turned out the way they did."

But then Jae Shin couldn't help but laugh. God - he was tired, he was exhausted, he had a black eye that was going yellow around the edges and his knuckles hurt and his back hurt and his arms hurt and the joints in his wrists and arms and shoulders all stung like he'd been beaten around the shoulders with a thickly-knotted rope, but he couldn't help but laugh. "I'm not," he said, when he'd caught his breath enough to speak. He grinned at the look Yong Ha gave him then, an expression of disbelief and annoyance and something that looked a little bit like rage. "I'm sorry that things… that everything happened the way it did, but - but we're here now."

"You're all beat up and you didn't sleep more than half an hour total last night and _I'm_ driving your car because you keep panicking out of the blue and passing out," Yong Ha said slowly. "In what way is this situation desirable, exactly?"

"You know we've known each other for sixteen years, right?"

The look on Yong Ha's face turned wary. "Yeah. Why…?"

"I think I've been in love with you for at least ten of those years," Jae Shin said plainly. He looked down at his hands in his lap, felt the heat of embarrassment rising on the back of his neck. "I remember being eighteen and you were sixteen and the only thing I wanted to do was spend time with you and listen to all the stupid shit you said and hear all the gossip about people I didn't care about, and - and it had been that way for a while, but I only started noticing it right around when I graduated high school. I just wanted to be with you all the time, even when I didn't want to be with anybody." He rubbed his palms over his thighs distractedly. "When I was in the army I thought it was the worst two years of my life, but at least when I was in the army you were still kind of there, even if it was on the other side of a computer screen."

Yong Ha reached out a hand, pressed his palm over the back of Jae Shin's left hand, stopped the movement of his hands. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be." Jae Shin shook his head. "It's—" He rubbed a hand over his face. "I'm tired. And I'm not good with words at the best of times. Look—"

"We've known each other for sixteen years," Yong Ha echoed him, squeezing his hand.

"We've been talking past each other for sixteen years," Jae Shin said, looking down at Yong Ha's hand in his lap. "I almost don't care what had to happen to get us here. I found you again. We caught the person who murdered my brother. It's… it's over. We're okay."

There was quiet for a second. "Let's go home, Shin," Yong Ha said.

"Let's go to Jeju," Jae Shin said, and looked up at him. "I need to get out of Seoul. I need to go somewhere else. With you. Let me take you to Jeju, like I said I would."

Yong Ha stared at him for a second, studying his eyes. "Okay," he said, and let a grin stretch slow and cautious over his face. "Since you put it that way."

 

* * *

**Jeju**

 

"Yoon Shik emailed me," Jae Shin said suddenly.

They'd been in Jeju for two days and Jae Shin had slept for about six hours combined since they'd checked into the hotel. ("Rule one for same-sex travel," Yong Ha had said, pressing the mic of his phone to his chest as he waited on hold with the travel agent, "get a room with two beds.") He didn't even look tired anymore, he just looked half dead - caught somewhere between sleep and wakefulness at all times, stuck in some liminal space, unwilling to fall into sleep but unable to claw all the way out. Yong Ha had laid around the hotel room for as long as he could stand it but finally on the third day he'd shoved Jae Shin into the shower, shoved him into some real clothes, shoved him out the door, and shoved him all the way down to the beach.

Yong Ha bent over and rolled up his pant legs as far as they would go. "Yeah? What did he say?"

"You were right." Jae Shin shrugged, shoving his hands into his trouser pockets and watching Yong Ha adjust his cuffs around his calves. "He's resigning. Starting school again in a month, he says. But he knows someone who can take over for him."

There was a momentary pause, almost imperceptible to anyone but Jae Shin, before Yong Ha continued twisting the fabric up to his knees. "Did he say who?"

Jae Shin made a face. "No. But I think we should trust the kid by now. Pretty sure he's smarter than both of us."

Yong Ha glared at him, kicking his sandals off and stepping into the sand in his bare feet. "Ex _cuse_ me?"

"Smarter than me," Jae Shin amended quickly. "Definitely smarter than me. Almost as smart as you. Not quite." He flinched. "Sorry?"

"I might be able to find it in my heart to forgive you eventually," Yong Ha replied, striding toward the water and wading into the surf. "Never let it be said that I am not a benevolent god. And don't roll your eyes at me. I can hear you rolling your eyes." He glanced back over his shoulder and shot Jae Shin a sharp look, tempered by the kind of smile he got when he couldn't help himself. "The water's warm."

The water was warm. The air was warm. The sand was warm. It was early enough in the morning that not many people were out on the beach yet so it was just them, just Jae Shin and Yong Ha for a long stretch of perfect white sand and perfect, quiet blue surf and cloudless blue sky. The last time they'd been here together they'd been younger, way younger and way stupider and way more innocent and way less damaged and so much less than what they were now. The last time they'd been here together they'd slept in separate beds. The last time they'd been here together Yong Ha wouldn't stop taking selfies of them until Jae Shin had locked the camera in the room safe and refused to give Yong Ha the combination.

The last time they'd been here together Jae Shin had watched Yong Ha in the surf and had wondered if he could possibly be any happier.

He'd had no idea, he'd had no idea, he'd watched Yong Ha in the surf and stayed up late to watch him sleep and bought him anything he wanted and saved all of those absolutely ridiculous selfies (even the one where Yong Ha had licked his ear at the exact same time as the shutter clicked and the face he'd made in reaction to the feeling was the ugliest he'd ever looked) and he'd had no idea.

The water was warm. The air was warm. The sand was warm. Jae Shin was warm.

"You look happy here," he said, raising his voice a little to reach Yong Ha over the gentle crash of the waves against the sand.

"Yeah, well." Yong Ha kicked a wave. "You're here, aren't you?" And he glanced up - water droplets on the lenses of his glass, hair messed up in the salt air, cheeks pink from the wind coming off the sea - and smiled.

For the millionth time, Jae Shin lost his breath and wondered if he could possibly be any happier.

 

* * *

**Vintage**

 

"If you fall down and die I'm never, ever going to forgive you," Yong Ha said, glaring up at him. His arms were crossed tight over his chest, his face was pale and drawn, his knees were locked in the way he did when he felt like he had to be ready to bolt for it if he had to. "If you die I want your apartment. And full ownership of the bakery. _And_ custody of the kids."

"We don't have any kids," Jae Shin said, sputtering around the screwdriver he'd stuck between his teeth for want of convenient pockets. (He could have stuck it in one of his trouser pockets but he was worried the grease would stain the linen, and if he ever had to go shopping for clothes again it would be too soon.) "Yoon Shik and the sea cucumber don't count, they're both quitting to go back to school."

"Well, whatever," Yong Ha sighed, flapping a hand dismissively. "Whatever kids we end up hiring. And I didn't hear you agree to me getting full ownership of Vintage."

"You've already got that."

Yong Ha paused. "Excuse me?"

"I mean…" Jae Shin pulled the screwdriver out of his mouth. "Not full ownership, not right now. But you do realize you're the co-owner, right? On the paperwork? If I _do_ die—"

"Don't," Yong Ha cut in, going even more pale and a little tiny bit green around the edges.

"—then yeah, you'll get full ownership. It's been that way since day one." He shot Yong Ha a curious look. "I came to you with the business opportunity not knowing you were a pastry chef, remember? That was just convenient."

There was a moment of quiet. Yong Ha scuffed one foot on the floor. "Oh," he said.

"And anyway there's no way I'm gonna die," Jae Shin continued, rolling his eyes and turning back to what he was doing. "I'm on a stepstool. I'm literally less than a meter off of the ground."

They'd gotten back from Jeju the day before and Vintage had been dusty and neglected from the month it had been closed. First there had been the two weeks immediately following what Yong Ha insisted on referring to as The Event, where neither of them had been able to do anything but try like hell to sleep when they could; then there had been the two weeks they'd spent on the island of Jeju, doing nothing but catching up on sleep, passing out next to the pool, walking on the beach, eating way too much seafood and having more sex than Jae Shin had ever had in his entire life combined even after Yong Ha had unofficially moved into his apartment, into his bedroom, into his bed.

The first thing Yong Ha had said when Jae Shin had unlocked the front door and pulled it open and the old dented brass bell over the door frame had clonked out that miserable tone had been: "you need to replace that fucking bell."

Jae Shin had looked up at Yong Ha's face (at the way the grin pulled his eyes into curves, at the way the light reflected off the lenses of his glasses) and then up at the bell.

He'd meant to do it a long time ago. Yong Ha had told him to the very first time he'd set foot inside of Vintage, back when plaster dust had coated every surface and the lightbulbs were uncovered and painters cloths had covered all the tables. His mother had told him to, back in December when everyone had found out about what happened to him. A month ago the woman had stepped into the bakery out of the monsoon and he'd heard the sound of the bell struggling and failing to make a sound anything even resembling musical and had thought _tomorrow, he'd do it tomorrow_ but then everything had happened and it had never ended up getting done.

So when Jae Shin unlocked the front door and pulled it open and the old dented brass bell over the door frame had clonked out that miserable tone and Yong Ha had sighed and said, "you need to replace that fucking bell," Jae Shin had known that it was time for a new goddamn bell.

Which meant that now he was three steps up a four-step stepstool, screwdriver in his mouth, brand new brass bell in one hand and a couple of old screws in the other, and Yong Ha was hovering anxiously two feet away with his arms crossed tight over his chest and his face pale and his knees locked in the way he did when he felt like he had to be ready to bolt for it if he had to, biting his lip and blathering something nonsensical about his expectations in the event of Jae Shin's untimely death.

"I'm serious," Jae Shin said around the screwdriver. "You standing there looking all nervous and talking about what's gonna happen if I die isn't exactly making this any easier. The least you could do is hold some of this for me."

"But it's all gross. I don't wanna touch it."

"Then stop complaining!"

"I'm not complaining, I'm _worried._ There's a difference."

"There isn't much of a difference, in practice. Either way you're being annoying. If I needed somebody to hover around me telling me to be careful while I did perfectly safe everyday tasks I'd call my mom."

Yong Ha clicked his tongue irritably. "Okay I know you think you're being rude but you realize that your mom is awesome, right?"

"Yes," Jae Shin sighed, glaring at the now-vacant spot where the bell had been and trying to figure out how the hell he was going to get the new bell in the right place. (Maybe he should have brought an electric drill. All these damn screw holes were in the wrong place, and god - he _really_ didn't have enough hands for this. For what felt like the first time in his life he found himself wishing that Lee Seon Joon were there to help; the kid was fucking annoying, sure, but mostly what he was was obnoxiously obedient to a fault even as he also not-very-quietly judged every action you took.) "She is. She's also a helicopter mom who hovers around me telling me to be careful while I do perfectly safe everyday tasks. That role in my life is officially filled, I don't need my boyfriend to mother me too."

"You kind of need me to mother you. A little bit."

"Please stop talking."

"You love it."

"Right, and I'll continue to love it in five minutes when I've finished figuring out this damn screw situation."

There was a sound from outside of the open door, two pairs of footsteps scuffing in the street, and Yong Ha turned his head to look. His face had slowly started regaining its color as they'd talked, and now all the color came rushing back with extra to spare as he choked out something that was something stuck somewhere between a laugh of complete and absolute glee and a cough of disbelief. "Yoon Shik," he managed after a second. "Fancy meeting you here."

"Thank god," Jae Shin mumbled under his breath. "Hey kid, I know you technically don't work here anymore but Yong Ha is being absolutely no help whatsoever and all I need is for somebody to hold something for me for maybe thirty seconds so I can get this figured out the rest of the way."

"I've never worked here before," came a voice through the door, and Yong Ha started laughing a laugh so high-pitched and frantic that he had to turn around and bend over almost double to keep from choking to death.

Jae Shin glared down at the door. Whoever it was who had just spoken was just barely out of his line of sight, but he didn't recognize the voice - it almost sounded familiar, but it was… wrong, somehow. Lower. A little softer. A little bit raspier than it should be, but hell if he could remember whose voice he was thinking of when he thought it almost sounded familiar. "Wait, who's out there?"

"Kim Yoon Shik," came the voice, and a kid ducked under the door frame.

He almost looked familiar, too - there was a curve to his eye and a sort of fragility to the frame of his face that reminded Jae Shin of someone he knew well but couldn't place. He looked pale and a little bit sickly but there was a light in his eyes that reminded him a little of the twinkle that Yong Ha got sometimes.

"You're not Kim Yoon Shik," Jae Shin said stupidly. "Where's—"

"He is, though," said a voice that he absolutely did recognize, and Yoon Shik (the Yoon Shik he knew, the Yoon Shik he'd hired nearly a year ago, the Yoon Shik he'd gone drinking with) ducked around the kid standing in the doorway. "This is Kim Yoon Shik."

Yoon Shik (the Yoon Shik he knew, the Yoon Shik he'd hired nearly a year ago, the Yoon Shik he'd gone drinking with) was… he was wearing a dress. He was wearing prim black kitten heels. He'd let his hair grow out a bit in the month Jae Shin had been gone and it was now cut in a demure bob, strands tucked sweetly behind his ears. He was wearing… was that makeup? He was wearing makeup, and dear sweet jesus no, wait, no—

"Kim Yoon Shik is my brother," said the girl in the doorway. "My name is Kim Yoon Hee." Her eyes flickered from Jae Shin over to Yong Ha, who was currently leaning desperately on the empty display case trying like hell not to die from choking on his own laughter. "Sorry. I… really needed a job, and you were the first I could find." She grinned nervously. "Surprise?"

Jae Shin hiccuped and the brand new brass bell fell out of his hand and hit the slate tile, where it promptly dented.

 

 

 

 

* * *

**An Addendum**

 

"But I gave you the _talk_ ," Jae Shin moaned into the table top.

"Well, right," Yoon Hee said awkwardly from the opposite side of the table. "And I told you that you really, really didn't have to."

"The talk?" Yoon Shik hissed at his older sister. She just shook her head and mouthed _don't ask_ behind her hand.

"Okay," Yong Ha said. "The talk? The _talk?!_ " He leaned back in his chair and gave Jae Shin a truly wicked look. "This I gotta hear."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We did it.
> 
> Writing this has been seriously one of the best experiences of my life, which maybe sounds stupid but, um, there you go. I've made a lot of really amazing friends. Everyone who's left a comment or a kudos or messaged me on my tumblr, seriously, you're all incredible and I absolutely don't deserve you.
> 
> I want to especially thank Addely, Akira_27, MindlessHappy, MotionlessMuse, and Crow for all of your ridiculous amazing incredible stupendous heartwarming tear-jerking ludicrous support and friendship and general fantasticness all around, like seriously holy shit is there anyone better than y'all? Some of you have been around longer than others (or, well, that I've known about anyway) but you're all GREAT and you're all constants and really, honestly, sincerely I don't know if this would have gotten written without you.
> 
> Thanks also to That Guy I Married for proofreading this WHOLE GOD DAMN THING (except for the smut because I was too desperately embarrassed which - yes - explains why the sexy parts may seem slightly less edited than the rest) and putting up with me talking plot at him all the time and crying over writer's block and asking for advice and generally being an obsessive nerd. It definitely, definitely wouldn't have gotten written without him. He's lived through this whole thing and we're still married, can you believe it? He's the best.
> 
> I'm a way better writer than I was this time last year, and I have more friends, and I've somehow become absolute fandom TRASH and it's been the best. I was expecting Vintage to top out at 70,000 words maximum and now it's (oh god) over 200,000 and yet there are so many people still with me and still reading and still leaving comments and god, this fandom is so tiny and old I didn't know if anyone would ever see this and the fact that anyone at all read it let alone enjoyed it is just so unbelievably incredible to me.
> 
> There will be a followup fic to Vintage and it'll be a fourth installment in the same series on AO3. It won't be very plot-heavy and there won't be a set update schedule beyond When I'm Finished Writing Something, but there's gonna be MORE because I'm ADDICTED.
> 
> Also coming up is a Pacific Rim AU, which you know quite a bit about by now if you've been following my tumblr. As of this writing it's standing at about 50,000 words with about 8 chapters roughed out, and I intend to start putting it up, uh… the official plan is Really Soon. The working title is Pacific Georim so please let me know if you have a better idea because if I can't come up with anything it's getting posted with that and I'll have to live with the embarrassment until my death.
> 
> Jesus christ!! I CAN'T BELIEVE VINTAGE IS OVER. This is like... my baby. God, y'all, seriously, I'm kind of in mourning.


End file.
